No Greater Love
by Evangeline Douglas
Summary: It's been said that there is no greater love than a life laid down. This is true. But nobody ever talks about the stumbling, awkward steps you take to get there. Zuko, Katara, and their accidental wingmen learn about those the hard way. Zutara Weeks 2008-Present in drabbles and oneshots. [Ch.24: Zuko and Katara might be getting too old to deal.]
1. Denim

_Well, today I was feeling both unmotivated and ambitious, and what better way to solve that than to commit to a giant project? Right. Well, nobody said my thought process was rational. Anyway, I've decided, in preparation for Zutara Week 2016, to finally get around to writing for every day of every Zutara week. Ever. All 9 years of awesomeness. I've written some before, but I never bothered to publish them. Most of them I've decided are either too cliché or not my best work, so I'll keep the ones I'm especially fond of, but the rest will be pushed to the back of my hard drive. Let's do this thang._

ZW 2009 Day 1: Denim

Duh, By Nim, Branch of Sokka Designs, Inc.

Summary: A couple of ill-timed accidents make for a regretful Aang, a dismayed Sokka, and a very happy Zuko. And Katara? It's too early to tell.

"Sokka, how long do I have to stand here?"

Sokka declines to dignify the question with a response, though if Katara focuses long enough, he believes she might get the impression that she'll be standing there as long as it suits him. Although, he muses to himself, given her naturally lower intellect, she might not pick up on it right away. Poor baby sister.

Even his greatest detractors cannot deny that Sokka has a certain eye for style, not even Toph, who readily admits that his bag did very nicely match his belt back in her Earth Rumble days. Sokka isn't sure why making that statement sent her into uproarious laughter, but he can't help but feel that she's making some joke at his expense. No matter. The bag did match the belt, and everybody knows it.

And so it happens that he and Katara are standing in a seamstress's shop in the Fire Nation. Katara is his lovely assistant-slash-model, and Aang, out of the goodness of his heart, is out front distracting the seamstress while Sokka works. Contrary to Katara's suggestion, Sokka most certainly is not stealing anything. Not her fabric, not her needles, not her space. It's just borrowing, and there's no reason the girl couldn't be there except that Aang's arrow is just so darn fascinating, isn't it, Katara?

Katara makes a face that reminds Sokka that his baby sister's boyfriend hasn't exactly fascinated her lately (if you ask Sokka, that's just swell) and she hasn't been much on the boy's brain either (that also suits Sokka just fine). With that happy thought, it doesn't take him long to finish the last touches on these pants he's made, just in time for the seamstress to walk in and start screeching at the mess Sokka's made of her shop.

"Run!" Aang, all-powerful Avatar, bender of four elements, bolts. Sokka and Katara exchange a glance. Even Uncle Iroh on cactus juice would be more frightening than whatever awful noise this woman is making. Katara does her thing and Sokka does his (which, roughly translated, means that Katara offers compensation and hugs while Sokka plans several methods of escape should there be any booby traps on the way out). They make it out relatively unscathed, though Katara has given up the silk skirt she was borrowing from the palace in exchange for Sokka's project. Aang, hiding in the bushes outside the shop, grabs both of them and hauls them toward the palace.

"Aang, it's okay," Katara begins.

"Katara did her magic people thing. We're all good!" With that, Aang stops running and turns to face them just as they reach the palace gates.

"You mean she's not going to send pirates or archers after us? Great!"

It's clear to the Water Tribe siblings then that Aang has spent far too much time running from his enemies and not enough time making friends (go figure, since he spent too much time making friends and goofing around during the war, didn't he?).

They enter the palace far more sedately than they arrived. "I need a name." Sokka strokes his imaginary beard and narrows his eyes at nothing.

"For what, Sokka?" Aang is bouncing around him like Momo around a peach.

"Hey, back off, buddy."

"Sorry. Just excited I guess." Sokka briefly wonders whether Aang has gotten into the cactus juice.

Sokka pats Aang's shoulder and turns to Katara, crossing his arms and looking her up and down. "Hmmmm…"

"Sokka, we shouldn't be just standing here in the middle of the hallway."

"We're not going anywhere until I have a name, Katara."

"Whatever you say, oh great _heong-nim_." Katara makes an exaggerated bow as she smiles through the ancient honorific.

"Wow Sokka. You must be pretty great." There's not a trace of sarcasm in Aang's words, and now Sokka is suspicious. Still, far be it from him to deny himself praise just because the source seems a bit off.

"Duh, Aang. I'm the esteemed older brother. Katara just never remembers." He flashes his sister a toothy grin. Said sister rolls her eyes. "Wait! That's it! I'll call them duh-nims. Then when people ask Katara what she's wearing she'll think of me. Get it? Like, duh, my brother made them?"

"Way to go, Sokka." Sokka does hear sarcasm from his sister, so he figures he should go ahead with the name.

"Has anybody seen Aang?" Zuko's voice echoes into the area, and Zuko himself immediately follows. "I was tired of him bugging me so I let him drink wine with his lunch- oh, there you are."

"Hey Zuko." Sokka scurries to his friend's side and slings an arm around his shoulders. "Check out my latest invention." He gestures at Katara, who scoffs and turns in a circle. "I'm calling them duh-nims. Get it? Because nim is that old word for brother and duh, I made them."

"That's great, Sokka." Sokka notices that Zuko seems dismissive. He'd be wounded, but Zuko's eyes are glued to the tight pants, which, in retrospect, maybe are too tight. Then it occurs to Sokka that maybe Zuko isn't really admiring the pants at all (suspicion confirmed when Katara turns a light shade of red).

Sokka's only venture into the fashion world after this is his foray into Katara's closet to burn the pants. Much to his dismay, that doesn't stop Zuko from staring at his sister, and it doesn't stop Aang and Katara from breaking up (sweet, harmless Aang, no, why why why would you let the wine talk about how you disapprove of Water Tribe meat eating culture). His brotherly instincts tell Sokka he's created a monster. He knows it when he walks in on Zuko kissing his baby sister in the garden. Naturally, he sneak attacks.

He tells himself the incident would have happened with or without his help. It's probably true, but even if it isn't, saying so helps Sokka sleep at night, and sometimes that's all a big brother can ask for from the universe.

 _AN (cont.): heong-nim is actually a Korean term for "esteemed older brother." In case anyone is curious. Hope you enjoyed this goofy little thing (but if you didn't, do tell. My ability to write humor has suffered as I've become more cynical, so feedback, whether positive or negative, is appreciated)._


	2. Electrifying

ZW 2009 Day 2: Electrifying

Lightning Rod

Summary: Katara remembers everything. It was over as soon as it began, forgettable to anyone but her. The funny thing about realizing she could be more than friends with Zuko, though, is that sometimes it's hard to decide whether or not she wants him to realize it too.

It was just one of those things, a fleeting moment. You wouldn't remember. I walked into Bumi's ballroom with Aang, close enough to him that everybody would know I was with him; far enough that nobody would think we were together. That was before we all met at your uncle's tea shop, at the party Bumi threw for the end of the war.

You were with Mai. I remember she was dressed in black and red, and you were too. She was beautiful that night, with her shining hair down around her face, and you were looking pretty good yourself. I told you that much, though you likely don't remember any of that either. I remember the man standing next to you, though I haven't seen him since, because he complimented my hair, and I remember how you were fidgeting with the heavy robes that you weren't quite used to. I remember everything.

You had been sitting at a table near the entrance, and you stood when we came in. A rare smile spread across your face. It was one of those smiles you're always trying to hide, like you don't want anyone to think you less than perfectly stoic, fully controlled. Mai spared you a glance as you stood, but quickly returned her attention to Ty Lee, and you walked over to us, and you greeted Aang and then turned to me. You told me I looked nice, and that was the part when I said that you looked pretty good yourself, of course, and then you extended your arm, as if you were going to clasp mine in the traditional Water Tribe greeting. I was surprised since you so much prefer to bow, but I took your arm.

Time stopped.

One breath, and we were the only people in the room. Your hand was warm and you gripped my arm like you never wanted to let go, and for that breath I thought I saw your eyes sparkle. I couldn't move, and had you spoken I couldn't have replied. You felt like lightning. The next breath came and the moment was gone. We were two friends in a room full of acquaintances again, and I remember realizing we'd held on just a second too long with smiles just a bit too wide. I pulled my arm out of your grasp, and you seemed to come back to yourself. Moving to the side, you made a bad joke (or made a joke badly, I suppose) and I laughed, like always. Like always, you returned to Mai and I to Aang, and everything fell into place. Sometimes I'm tempted to dismiss this entirely, to ignore it, to think I'm reading too much into it. But that's not possible.

We haven't touched since. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I like to think you must have felt it too or we wouldn't dance around each other like butterflies in the wind. You just look so awkward, waving goodbye to me when we're standing less than three feet from each other, so sometimes I wonder what would happen if I hugged you instead. It would be like lightning striking the lightning rod, I think, and that's why we'll never touch again. I might fall for you, and the only thing that comes from a falling lightning rod is a house fire.

Maybe, on second thought, you do remember. I wish you'd forget, that you'd let me keep this moment a secret close to my heart and nobody would ever have to know. But then I see you smile and I can't help wishing that a little less.


	3. Smug

ZW 2008 Day 3: Smug

(Set between EIP and Sozin's Comet)

Wherein The Water Tribe Loses a Great Deal of Money

 _Summary: Katara and Zuko leave camp for a few days. It's not what you think, really._

The trap is set. They've stuffed grass and Appa's fur into their bedrolls, put what food won't be missed too badly in bags, and disappeared into the trees. Zuko has been slipping away for days to find a place Toph can't see, and Katara has made enough meals to get the group through three days without her there to cook. They're leaving tonight, Zuko tells her. This is the last chance they'll have before the comet comes, and they take it. It's almost too easy.

"Has anyone seen Zuko?" Aang rubs his eyes as he comes around the corner of the beach house. "He's not in the courtyard."

Sokka shifts in his sleeping bag on the beach, grumbling. "What do you need him so early for?"

"Usually he makes me do breathing exercises at dawn."

Snuggling deeper into his sleeping bag, Sokka waves a hand at his friend. "Ask Katara." The top of his head pokes back above the white fur. "Also, ask her if there's any meat for breakfast."

As Sokka disappears again, Aang squints into the rising sun and tries to decide whether it's really worth trekking all the way back to the beach house, finding out where Zuko is, finding Zuko, and then having to do his breathing exercises. Aang decides today is a good day for a day off. After all, what better way to end a night of camping under the stars?

"Hey, Airhead! Meat!"

On the other hand, he has to go to the kitchen for Katara anyway.

By the time Aang makes it back to the beach, white-faced and nearly trembling, Toph is awake and screaming bloody murder at the Sokka-shaped lump in the sand. Suki is watching the whole thing with a look that walks a thin line between horror and amusement.

"Snoozles! Did you put these shoes on my feet?" That much Aang could hear from the beach house. He knows whatever follows can't be good, but he's fairly certain she thinks Sokka has played some prank. Aang knows better, though, because then Sokka also would have had to leave this note, and even Sokka isn't that cruel.

"Guys," Aang begins, approaching Toph and the cowering lump. "Katara and Zuko are gone."

Toph snorts. "Yeah, we know Twinkle Toes. Suki found Katara's sleeping bag full of weeds."

"What about Zuko's?" Aang is doubly worried now. If they'd bothered to cover their tracks (and Toph's feet), they must have been serious. This concerns him in a way he's not used to.

Suki lifts a pile of red blankets and white fur tumbles out. "He and Katara must have gone together."

Aang holds out the note he found in the kitchen. Sokka springs from the ground and snatches it. " 'Dear Toph, Suki, and Aang' hey what about me?"

"Just keep reading, Sokka." Suki steps behind her boyfriend and looks over his shoulder.

"Fine. 'Dear Toph, Suki, and Aang' _and Sokka,_ 'Zuko and I went to do some reconnaissance. We'll be back in three days. Love, Katara.'" Sokka collapses onto his knees and grabs his hair. "I knew it was only a matter of time! Zuko's kidnapped my sister!"

Aang turns away from the group and mutters, "They probably ran away to be together."

"Okay Twinkletoes," Toph snaps. "We get that you're still a little _sensitive_ after the play the other night. Get over it."

"Besides, Aang," Suki puts in, "Zuko's been scouting the island for days. If he wanted to go further, it makes sense to bring someone else along."

This doesn't seem to help Aang much, but Sokka embraces Suki's theory like it's his lost sister come back to him. Or meat. The two are fairly interchangeable (at least at breakfast time). Toph blows her hair out of her eyes. "You knew he was running off too? Sparky's not as good as he thinks he is."

Sokka barks a laugh and returns to the letter. " 'Aang, do one hundred hot squats every time you hear a badger frog. Zuko.' Aang, you better get on that." Sokka grins. "Oooh! Finally! Somebody cares about me. 'Sokka, it's not what you think. Katara.'"

Sokka narrows his eyes at the paper. Suki beats him to the question. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sokka's eyes narrow so much he's squinting at nothing. "If I thought Zuko kidnapped Katara, he must not have. Unless Zuko didn't expect me to think he kidnapped Katara because he's good now. Except _Katara_ said it wasn't what I thought-"

"Shut up, Sokka." Toph snatches the paper from him and crumples it. "I think it's pretty obvious." Her smile turns devious. "Twinkletoes is on to something."

"Thanks Toph." Aang doesn't look especially thrilled to be right.

"No sweat, Twinkles."

Sokka, while slow to take the bait, eventually becomes so convicted that Zuko and Katara have run off on some last-minute romantic escapade that he bets Toph his entire secret stash of emergency copper coins and dried seal jerky that they've done just that. Suki tries to dissuade him for fear that Toph is in on some prank, and Aang tries to dissuade him for fear that it's true. Neither is successful.

By the time Katara and Zuko make it back, Aang has worked himself into a frenzy of firebending, hoping, by some strange logic unknown to everyone but the Very Innocent Party who gave him the idea (Toph), that if Katara realized he was a better firebender than Zuko, she'd leave Zuko for him.

It doesn't quite get him the results he was hoping for.

Zuko nods his approval as Aang finishes the most complicated and difficult form he'd been taught thus far, and Aang bows and collapses. Katara looks at them. "Zuko was right, Aang. Us disappearing for a few days was really good for your firebending. I owe you an apology, Zuko."

"And cash," Toph interjects.

Katara glares at her but produces the agreed upon sum. Zuko is all too happy to take it, and if his self-satisfaction gets any more irritating to Katara, he may find himself dying a mysterious death. "Don't be so smug, you firebending jerk!"

"You too, Sokka. Pay up!" Toph is nearly bubbling from ill-contained glee.

Sokka, grumbling, stomps to his room to find his coins. They're hidden under his mattress where no one can find them (or they would be, except Toph detected them weeks ago and they're quite safely hidden under her mattress now).

Toph and Zuko have themselves a congratulatory fist bump the next time Katara turns around.

 _AN: In case I didn't make it clear enough, Zuko bet Katara that if neither of them were around making Aang paranoid (because they'd just seen that play), Aang's firebending would improve. Naturally, Toph wanted to torture Sokka and Zuko just wanted to be right, so they teamed up for the exercise. Cheaters._

 _Is it really Zutara? Maybe. Is Zuko's motive really so pure as to disappear alone with Katara strictly for Aang's sake? I call that a long shot._


	4. Manipulative

ZW 2008 Day 4: Manipulative

The Riots of 104

 _Summary: Zuko would learn respect, and suffering would be his teacher. The trouble is that leading a nation often means he isn't the one suffering the most, and that's a heavy weight to bear._

The former Fire Lord was an expert strategist, in his way. He didn't quite understand that ruling by fear only works until it doesn't, but there were few things he couldn't get an army to accomplish. Zuko respects this. Perhaps a bit begrudgingly, but he respects his father's skill nonetheless. What he has more difficulty respecting is the manipulation necessary to convince people to give their lives for a purpose that's dubious at best and evil at worst. Is it possible to respect something he disagrees with? Uncle would say yes. Katara might spout off on how horrible Ozai was, but he thinks she would have agreed with Uncle at the end of the day. He'll never know for sure, but it's a nice thought.

Zuko thinks he has too many thoughts these days. He shivers as a cold wind blows through his robes and clutches at his skin, but neither his eyes nor his thoughts leave the tiny dot on the horizon.

It was a year ago, 104 ASC, he remembers. Zuko swept into the throne room and faced his standing advisors, all of whom looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"Be seated." The men sat, and the Fire Lord's flames rose before him as he lowered himself onto his throne.

"Fire Lord Zuko," one began. "The council has heard rumors that your relationship with Lady Mai has ended."

"What Councilman Risu means to say," interrupted another, "is that the Fire Nation throne must have an heir, and we are aware that you are being rather slow about it."

Councilman Risu gasped loudly (Zuko briefly entertained the idea that the two rehearsed this before the meeting) and sputtered most indignantly about Councilman Shinobi's disrespect.

"Enough." Zuko stood and let the flames flicker higher. His voice didn't boom like his father's did, and while he's never sure whether or not to be grateful for one fewer similarity, he did feel less intimidating. It bothered him, and he thought Shinobi knew it. The man obviously had some old loyalties left. Probably one of Ozai's spies (how his father thought Zuko didn't know there were spies was a puzzle Zuko never had the energy to work out). "What do you suggest?"

The council nearly tripped over itself to present a plan that had obviously been carefully plotted earlier. Shinobi vehemently opposed it, along with most of the traditionalists, so Zuko felt it was safe to consider. It frustrated him that someone leaked it and incited the torching of the Water Tribe trading district in the city, but the idea and its supporters were sound.

~8~

 _Dear Zuko,_

 _How nice of you to reassure me that you want to marry me, but you don't love me. I will, but only because if I don't, my father wants me to marry some stuck-up jerk from the Northern Tribe. At least you're just a jerk._

 _Your friend,_

 _Katara._

Zuko wasn't sure whether to be gratified or offended by her response, but he met her at the docks anyway. He didn't love her; not the way she deserved, he thought at the time, but he thought a well-aimed fireball at the ranks of protesters wasn't entirely out of line. Katara disagreed, but he was only defending the honor of his intended. She had her flaws (a great many, at that), but she didn't deserve the vitriol from the people.

They walked around the caldera the next day, through angry civilians throwing rotten vegetables and glowering soldiers fingering their weapons.

He leaned against the wall that night as she scrubbed the scarlet tomato-squash stains from her blue dress. "Why did you agree to marry me?"

Katara gave him an odd look. "I never turn my back on people who need me. The Fire Nation needs me, even if they don't know it yet."

Zuko deflated a bit, though he couldn't have said why. The statement sounded rehearsed, but maybe it was just Katara's mantra getting old.

The palace was attacked the night they announced their engagement, and much of the city was burned. Zuko informed the council that Katara would be returning to the South Pole until things quiet down, and he was unsurprised when Shinobi weakly encouraged the plan while nearly bouncing in his seat. A poor actor, Shinobi.

"My Lord," Risu protested. "We need this alliance. We have to show the world that the Fire Nation can accept other nations."

"We will." Zuko glared at the councilman. "As soon as things cool down."

Somehow, thanks to Shinobi's long conversation with Katara about how beneficial it would be to the Fire Nation for her to leave, Katara refused to go. "Zuko, I'm not leaving. Not when we're so close."

"People are dying, Katara. My people. The traditionalists need time."

"How much time, Zuko? How long are you going to let them win?"

They were in his office, on opposite sides of the desk, and Zuko leaned over and stared into her eyes. "As long as it takes. The Fire Nation is proud and strong; people aren't going to change because we tell them to." Katara turned on her heel and walked out, as if to say that she could be just as proud as any stuck-up Fire Nation native and she refused to give up the alliance. The Southern Water Tribe was a minor nation, if you asked for Zuko's honest opinion (not that he'd ever tell Katara that), so he wasn't sure exactly why she was being so stubborn about it. He pushed those thoughts aside for the moment and turned to the white faced servant waiting next to the door. "What do you want?!"

The slums and servant's quarters burned that night. If Zuko hadn't felt so awful that the servant at his door had lost his family in the blaze, he'd have fired the man on the spot for spreading the news that Katara would stay. He should have, but they say everything's clearer in hindsight.

~8~

The longer Katara stayed, the worse things got. Zuko's nation was crumbling from the inside out as citizens created the civil war Zuko had avoided for four years. Brothers killed brothers, neighbors pillaged and looted, and Zuko found himself feeling more like a figurehead than a Fire Lord. Aang came and went, arguing and pleading for the Fire Nation to govern itself as a member of the Four Nations, but the people refused. Fire Nation flags flew on every home, the Avatar and his waterbending master were burned in effigy, and the Fire Lord was ignored. It was in these moments that Zuko was most tempted to seek the advice of his father, and it was in one of these moments when he realized Katara couldn't stay. Fire Lord Zuko had to be the leader of the Fire Nation first, and a leader of the global community second.

His speech to that effect was greeted with confused applause. Shinobi and Risu were beside themselves trying to pick up the pieces of what they thought they knew about Fire Lord Zuko, and somehow neither of them was particularly pleased with what they put together (which Zuko was curious about, given how happy they seemed to be during all of the rioting).

They were in his office again. Katara's things were packed on the ship, and she was dressed in the Water Tribe clothes she'd given up wearing months before. "Why did you agree to marry me?"

Her answer was what he expected, even if he might have secretly hoped for something else. "I thought you needed me." She looked at him in that strange way she had, and reached for his hand where it rested on the desk. "I thought the Fire Nation needed me too. But they don't, and they knew it before I did."

"I'll, um, miss you," he offered.

Katara smiled. "You're such a dork, Zuko."

He wasn't sure whether to be offended by the words or gratified by the smile, but he walked her to the docks anyway. At some point, it registered that his servant, the one he usually had by his office door to go for tea and ink, had left the room some time during the conversation, but he didn't think nearly enough of it until soldiers caught up to them.

"Fire Lord Zuko, the prisons are burning."

"My father?"

The soldiers visibly cringed, and Zuko braced himself. "Unaccounted for, sir."

Something moved and the soldiers moved and there were muffled shouts and screams but the only thing Zuko remembers now is the red spreading over blue, like an army conquering a foreign land. He put his hand around the dagger and pressed against the wound and looked into two shimmering blue eyes. "Katara! Katara!"

"Zuko, get me water." Her voice was weaker than he remembered it, but he wasn't really sure if it was her voice or his hearing that had a problem. He shouted something and it only took a few seconds for a soldier to bring water that Katara couldn't bend. She struggled to breathe as the red grew larger, and he thought he heard his name but he couldn't really be sure and her eyes weren't sparkling like they were supposed to and where was the healer? Hadn't he sent for one? He couldn't remember.

He felt her hand squeeze his. He didn't know how she'd found it, what with him holding her wound and giving her water and waving at swarms of people to get back, but she found it and looked at him, almost through him. "I'm sorry." Her voice was barely more than a whisper, and Zuko would have given anything in that moment to hear her screaming at him.

"Don't be sorry, Katara. It's not your fault. Katara?"

She wasn't listening.

~8~

He was guarding her body and scribbling messages to people he couldn't name when he heard the boom. His father's voice echoed over the scorched earth like a cannon, and Zuko knew it was lost.

"People of the Fire Nation."

And then there was nothing Zuko could do but watch as his father, defeated, former Fire Lord Ozai, stood high above the fray, calling the people to him. Risu and Shinobi bowed to him, as did the servant whose name Zuko knew he should have remembered. They stood at his side as Ozai ascended the steps to the palace, and they accepted their praise for infiltrating the government of the weak Prince. Zuko watched with detached horror as Risu and Shinobi bowed to each other, acknowledging the other's part, as if it were all a construct, as if Zuko was some puppet they'd manipulated for their own purpose. Zuko knew he had lost. He boarded Katara's ship, now her funeral barge, and slipped into the night.

And that, he remembers, is how he came to be standing on the frozen edge of the ocean in the Southern Water Tribe, shivering as he waits for the canoe on the horizon to disappear. Her father and her brother stand on either side of him, and he thinks he'd give just about anything for them to scream at him. Anything but the deafening silence. It's not his fault, they said, but their eyes tell a different story, a story of wounded men looking for an enemy to condemn or fight or anything but a friend who did his best.

Their voices forgive him and their silence damns him.

He'd like to blame his father, Ozai's skill, Ozai's manipulation, Ozai's evil, but he can't because he allowed it, ignored it, disrespected it. He trusted, tolerated, looked the other way, and it cost him. The woman he could have loved is dead. Innocent people are dead.

And the Fire Nation burns.

 _AN: Whew. This one was a trip. I went in thinking I'd write some funny little thing about Ozai accidentally playing matchmaker (should I make another attempt at that?), but obviously it worked out quite the opposite. It also took forever and a day to write because I kept trying to binge watch Scooby Doo on Netflix instead of doing something more productive (way to go, Eva), but hopefully the next bit will be along sooner than this one was. As always, feedback is welcome (I'm especially interested to know if I'm keeping the voices in character, because sometimes I have trouble with that). Thanks for reading! Y'all are awesome._


	5. Mythology

ZW 2008 Day 5: Mythology

Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable.

Read this with the Southern Raiders in mind.

Currents

 _Summary: Korra remembers very few of the stories Katara used to tell her in the early years of her waterbending, but she remembers the one that could make a weeping wreck of the greatest waterbender in the world. It doesn't seem like the best bedtime story, but Korra's time is drawing closed, and somehow she doesn't think this is the sort of story that should be forgotten._

"Tell me a story, Gran Gran."

Korra brushes her wrinkled hand across her granddaughter's forehead. "Promise you'll go to sleep after?"

Mako snorts in his armchair across the room, and Korra can't decide whether he's laughing at her or his snoring is getting worse. Aujaq giggles. "Promise."

"This is a story Master Katara told me a long time ago."

"Your waterbending teacher?"

Korra nods and makes a point to slouch and hobble into bed next to Aujaq. "It's even older than me."

Aujaq makes a face. "I'm pretty sure Gramp Gramp is the only thing older than you."

The Gramp Gramp in question lifts one bushy, white eyebrow at Korra, but the gold eye beneath shimmers with amusement. Korra chuckles. "This story is even older than Gramp Gramp. It tells us how the Poles were created." She closes her eyes, reaching into her memory for every detail, the way Katara told it. "A long time ago, the world was at war, and a waterbender hated a firebender."

"This doesn't sound like a very good story, Gran Gran." Aujaq has never had any qualms about speaking her mind before, and she's not about to start now. Korra suddenly has a great appreciation for Katara's patience. She's told Aujaq is very much her granddaughter. She rolls her eyes and shushes the girl.

"A long time ago, a waterbender hated a firebender."

.

.

.

She was strong and graceful, a mover of oceans and a bringer of rain. She was the storm.

He was fierce and lithe, dancing through the night with flames licking his steel blades. He was the fire.

She was rough, then smooth in an instant, violent one moment and peacemaker the next. She was the ocean.

He was noble, turned to raging warrior in a moment, silent, still, and suddenly bright and consuming. He was the sun.

She was blue. He was red. She hated him.

He stood for everything she fought, in everything from his haughty bearing to his hungry ambition, and he would betray her trust to feed himself. The firebender sought glory and honor at whatever cost, even if it meant the destruction of the world. His fire would spread and he would let it race across a desert dried of hope and dead from despair.

Except suddenly he comes to her, humbled. His eyes, once sharp and gleaming as steel have dulled to the glow of the hearth. He carries his weight with straight shoulders and a bowed head, as if to say that he still has some pride, or dignity, but he will no longer be proud. At the time, she maintains there's no difference. Her voice, once warm like the ocean caressing the beach, breaks like ice as she condemns him.

All ice must either melt or shatter, and the waterbender does some of both (mostly shatters). The Avatar comes, as is his duty, to make peace between the waterbender and the firebender, to no avail. He loves the waterbender, and he can't bear to break her because pieces glued together aren't the same as a whole. The trouble, of course, is that water constantly changes, and the water he had adored was already frozen away whether he saw it or not. The healer in her knows broken bones heal stronger, but the mediator in him knows sometimes it's better not to break the bone in the first place. In this case, the bone is rotting from the inside, and she turns away from the Avatar. She turns to the firebender and he lets her break (her bones, her being, whatever is necessary).

They go to the man who infected her, who taught her hatred in the first place. Her ice shatters around the villain and melts into the firebender, and somehow she becomes mostly water again, healed but no longer perfect. As the Avatar predicted.

She returns changed, water again instead of ice. But she's not the same water as before, more the ocean than the koi pond the Avatar knew. No longer the cool stream but now a boiling lake, heated by too much contact with the firebender she used to hate. It breaks the Avatar's heart, though it takes him many years to realize it. His cool water scalds him and he won't let go but so help him, he can't let go.

He came to make peace, and peace there will be. The waterbender boils in the presence of fire and the firebender fizzles near water, and the only way to stop it is to separate them, so the Avatar fights his battles and keeps the waterbender at his side. It works. Water cools and fire warms again, and there is no spitting or sputtering or noise for a time.

It doesn't take them long to find each other. They fit together like yin and yang, circling like Tui and La. Together, they become something entirely different from what they were apart, but they change as the Avatar feared, and the world can't have that. There must be peace, and if peace can only come from steadiness, so be it. There is no sacrifice too great. (Is there?)

The Avatar tears them apart, separating their persons and their elements, and now between them there's a gulf too large for floods to fill and a forest too great for fire to burn. Eventually, the two pass on, but their elements can never embrace again. The storms rage and howl, the fires crack and scorch, always burning and breaking and screaming. Sometimes one breaks through, but the fire is too great and the water spread too thin or the rain falls too strong and the flickering flames are too small, and the one puts out the other. And thus fire and water can never touch and come away the same as before.

The fire that warms the ocean can no longer touch it, and ice crystallizes where waves used to roll. Waterbenders congregate there first to practice their art and then to settle, but still the place is cold. Ice. Sun shines on it, sometimes, but it's a harsh light that cuts through the air and reflects off the mountains of frozen, glittering water. This chill begins at the ends of the world, the poles, and grows until it reaches land, never to be warm again.

That is why the ocean is cold.

.

.

.

"Gran Gran? I'm pretty sure the ocean is cold because of currents and the depth of the water."

Korra sighs. The young have no appreciation for mythology.

.

.

.

 _AN: Well, I failed to write this in a timely manner, so I apologize to anyone waiting on me. I had a beginning that I scrapped because this suddenly came to me and made the first plan look lame (we can't have that). So, happy Day 1 of Zutara Week 2016, the day on which I finally get another day of 2008 churned out. Oh well._

 _Let me know what you think. The ideas were there but this was inexplicably hard to write, so I'm very curious about glaring flaws. Too many mixed metaphors?_

 _Also, Aujaq, for those interested, is an Inuit name meaning "summer"._


	6. Stare

ZW 2008 Day 6: Stare

Powder Blue

 _Summary: Katara takes a moment to consider whether she should be honored by the fact that she can move Zuko to forget about his honor, if only briefly._

It's a fairly well-known fact around the palace that Master Katara always waits in the Fire Lord's office in the morning. Fire Lord Zuko has come to expect her presence (mostly so he can mutter about the council), and so a few of the servants take it upon themselves to straighten up his office and set out tea before she arrives. Naturally, one of them is always stationed at the door after Fire Lord Zuko arrives in case of any bending emergency (usually involving Katara bending tea over the Fire Lord's head, but occasionally he sets his curtains ablaze). Or to eavesdrop. Probably more to eavesdrop.

Katara is fairly well aware by now that Zuko's custom, when he arrives for their morning tea, is to turn immediately to his reports and petitions. The first thing he mutters to her is usually some objection to some nonsense some idiot thought was a good idea. It requires self control she didn't know she had, but Katara manages, most of the time, to silently agree with him (or, rarely, raise her eyebrow in that motherly way Sokka despises). Servants have big mouths, and as the Water Tribe Ambassador she can't go running her mouth about sensitive subjects. Or that's how Toph put it when agreeing with Zuko about Katara's public image in the Fire Nation, anyway.

At any rate, Katara has learned to tolerate the stifling environment of politics, if only because Zuko fretted that if she didn't control herself, Toph certainly couldn't be expected to, and Toph was doing damage to his reputation as it was. So, these days they reserve their arguments for notes passed in meetings (always under the table, naturally).

Thus, as is her custom, Katara drags herself out of bed shortly before dawn and sleeps through some servant or other trying to contain her hair, which is a vain effort at best and a disaster at worst. The servant gives up just after the glow of sunrise grows into the bright morning light (conveniently, just after Zuko has finished his morning firebending in the courtyard, which is just as conveniently placed under her window. That servant has a particular fondness for doing Katara's hair in front of said window). Still drowsy, Katara heaves herself out of the chair and shuffles to her closet, pulling out the first robe she touches (the servants started noticing she'd wear the same thing every day, so now they have an official schedule for rotating Master Katara's closet. She always goes for the middle).

By the time she's dressed and ready to wander down to Zuko's office, Katara has largely come to grips with the morning. It occurs to her on the way past her mirror and out the door that this particular robe seems a bit tight, but she can't imagine Zuko will notice. And even if he did he wouldn't have the nerve to tell her she's wearing clothes that don't fit. Speaking of Zuko, she muses as she perches on his desk with her cup of tea, he's stomping loudly this morning. The Fire Lord bursts through the door with steam billowing out of his nose.

"Ambassador Ben Dan wants the Fire Nation to hand over some of its land to the Earth Kingdom as reparations. Like an island country can afford to give them land!" This is an opportunity Katara uses to laugh (politics, Katara, politics. No discussion allowed). The servants report that Master Katara finds the Fire Lord's consternation amusing (and they report it in precisely those terms, because servants in the palace pride themselves on their education).

Her laughter brings Zuko out of his rage long enough to glance at her, which is nothing out of the ordinary. Less ordinary is the way his eyes slowly sweep up once and down once, but his face is blank, as if he's entirely unaware of the way he's looking at her. Briefly self-conscious, Katara's eyes flicker down, and it occurs to her that this robe really is rather tight, and probably not in a bad way. She forces her gaze back up to his face and waits for him to finish his perusal. A perusal that's actually rather dishonorable, if Zuko had given it any thought. She's almost positive this is a good time to be offended, but she has a strange feeling that she doesn't mind. If she's honest, she almost likes it (and that has to stop immediately. Before things get awkward).

Zuko recovers himself just before the silence becomes uncomfortable and continues mumbling as if he'd never stopped, and the day goes on as usual.

An elderly servant grins later, when Katara is overthinking things down in the kitchen, and she winks. "Powder blue is a good color on you, Master Katara. It brings out your eyes."

Toph snorts loudly from her seat in front of the fire flake jar. "He wasn't looking at your eyes, Sugar Queen. Not that I'd know." She waves a hand in front of her own eyes and cracks a smile. Katara sighs loudly and glares (not that Toph can see it).

Meanwhile, Zuko spends the next week wondering why all of his servants seem to be laughing at him.

 _AN: So it turns out that going back to college really kills a person's writing vibe. Also, organic chemistry II is even more painful than the first semester, so woe is me. Oh well. As always, hope you enjoyed this. I think it came out a little less angsty than the last two, and I really needed a break from these hooligans being miserable, so that's a good thing._


	7. Pinch

ZW 2008 Day 7: Pinch

Clothespins

 _Summary: In a world of tenuous peace, Kya and Ursa watch the children play. In a world of war, the children-who-aren't-quite-children-anymore still hold their old games in their hearts._

Katara has never liked her nose. It's upturned, childishly so (or like a cowpig's, if you asked Sokka). It doesn't have the fierce bridge like her father's or the sloping of her mother's; no, her nose is a monstrous little thing (though she thinks she ought to be grateful it's not large). Gran Gran always reassures her it's a perfect Water Tribe nose, but Gran Gran's nose is like Hakoda's so Katara can't say she's convinced. Of course, she's also eight years old and not given to listen to her elders, but that's a minor detail.

"Your nose is fine, Katara." Her mother smooths her hair and smiles.

"But Mom," Katara groans with all the exaggerated misery an eight year-old can muster as she slouches against the mast of the Water Tribe ship. "What if Prince Zuko and Princess Arugula make fun of me?"

"Princess _Azula,_ " her mother corrects.

Katara wrinkles her nose, but suddenly seems to realize something and smooths her face. Kya looks at her daughter quizzically. "Sokka says if I make faces I could stick that way."

Kya sighs and adjusts Katara's hair again. "Your face won't stick that way, my love."

"Well Gran Gran says I could get wrinkles like hers."

Her mother can't help but think she has a very impressionable daughter.

They arrive at the palace just after sunrise the next morning. Prince Zuko, as it turns out, is a shy boy of ten who spends much of the introductions caught in indecision over whether to hide behind his mother's skirt or to stand up straight next to his father. Princess Azula, though younger, stands taller and prouder, though Kya thinks it's more performance than confidence and Hakoda, if anyone were to ask, would say she reminds him of Sokka when he wants something. Quite a kiss-up to her father, that girl.

Sokka thinks she's stuck up, but that's neither here nor there since it's only reasonable for him to associate with his fellow man doing manly things. He and Zuko, upon being released into the palace gardens with the girls, immediately tackle each other over whose nation is better.

"So Katara," Azula begins, perching herself on the edge of a fountain. "I heard you came here because the weak Water Tribes think they can't defeat the Fire Nation in battle."

Katara is deeply offended by the smirk curling Azula's lips. "No we're not!"

"Then why are you here?"

Katara frowns. "I don't know."

"You shouldn't make faces like that. It makes your nose look dumb." Azula's smirk lifts a bit higher, and she turns on one heel and stalks toward the palace, leaving Katara at the fountain and the boys in the courtyard. The smirk relaxes into a placid smile as she passes her mother, who sits with Kya on a bench beneath an old tree. Ursa eyes her daughter, as if she's suspicious but not entirely certain what she ought to be suspecting. "Hi Mom."

"Aren't you and Katara getting along?" Ursa reaches toward Azula, but the child edges just out of reach.

"Of course," Azula replies, in that sickeningly sweet tone she knows her mother won't argue with. "I was just going to the kitchens for some lychee nuts."

Ursa looks back to the fountain where Katara is still sitting, dragging one finger through the water. "Why don't the two of you go together?"

Azula shrugs, as if she'd not considered the idea. "It won't take long, Mom." And with that, she's gone like a shadow into darkness, and Ursa sighs heavily.

A shout echoes across the garden. "Katara! Come help me pin this Fire Nation jerk!"

Katara leaps from the fountain and runs to her brother. Ursa relaxes and Kya rolls her eyes. No one sees Azula until dinner.

"The roast duck is excellent, Fire Lord Ozai," Hakoda announces, digging into his meal not unlike General Iroh, who sits across from him at the long table shoveling the meat into his mouth with all his usual gusto.

Ozai raises his head deliberately and nods slightly. Iroh swallows and pats his rotund belly. "Roast duck is the pride of the Fire Nation, Chief Hakoda. I only wish we had better tea!"

Hakoda chuckles. "The Water Tribes have excellent arctic wine, but we've never had much tea."

"That's so sad," Iroh sniffles.

Ozai looks at his brother with contempt, and if Hakoda hadn't believed the rumors that the Fire Lord killed his father and usurped his brother's throne, he certainly does now. Azula puts her chopsticks down next to her plate. "Father?"

"Yes, Princess Azula."

"When will the other leaders arrive?"

"Tomorrow." Ozai sips his tea and looks at his daughter impassively before turning his attention back to his brother.

Azula smiles and looks at Katara. "The _Avatar_ is coming," she whispers. "He's over a hundred years old."

"Silence, Princess Azula."

The girl snaps back into a perfect posture in her seat and picks up her chopsticks. "Yes, Father."

Katara looks between the princess and the Fire Lord. Her father has never spoken to her that way. But then, Azula doesn't seem to be upset and she did tease Katara about her nose earlier, so it isn't as though she didn't deserve it.

Avatar Aang is nothing like Katara expected. He is, he says, one hundred and six years young, and as far as Katara can tell he's an old bald man who likes to play tricks on dignitaries and hide in the garden with the children. She likes him right away. Azula is rather standoffish, and Zuko is nowhere to be found, but she and Sokka play hide and seek (hide and explode in the Fire Nation, but so long as Azula isn't going to play there's not much sense following her rules. Not that she's pleased by Sokka's declaration to that effect).

"Avatar Aang, will you tell me a story?" Sokka has tired of the game and gone to find Zuko (a futile effort, which partly explains why her brother is later found stealing komodo jerky from the kitchens). Azula scoffs and lights a flame in her palm which she stares at with an odd intensity. Katara ignores her friend, or whatever this strange girl is, and looks up at the Avatar.

"You can call me Aang," he says, and plops to the ground with a grace Katara has never seen in anyone this old. "What kind of story?"

"Hmmmmmm." Katara stares at the Avatar.

"Yes?"

"Tell me about how you defeated the Fire Nation attacks."

A dark look passes over the Avatar's face. He shouldn't tell her, not here, not when there are probably servants who will report his every word to the Fire Lord. "Another time, Katara. Want to hear about when I rode the elephant koi at Kyoshi Island?"

She beams at him, and he tells her about being eleven. Never mind what happened when he was twelve. The Fire Nation attacked and killed his people, and he's the only one left, and beyond that he has no interest in thinking about what happened so many years ago. Better to leave the past in the past. Isn't it?

Kya watches her daughter, enraptured by whatever the Avatar is saying to her. Ursa stands beside her, looking contemplative. "I wish things were different."

"Your highness?" Kya looks at the other woman quickly, then turns back to the scene before her.

"I wish my husband's family were not responsible for so much destruction. I wish the world weren't so political, or that we could have a better peace." Ursa sighs heavily. "I almost married a peasant, a long time ago. We would have been happy."

It's the tone of an unhappy woman, a tone Kya knows all too well from her visits to the Northern Water Tribe, so full of tradition and loveless marriages and miserable families whose children hate each other and whose elders create a society so devoid of happiness it hurts to watch. And suddenly Kya hopes, more powerfully than she ever has, that her children will be permitted a simple life, even as she knows her eight year-old daughter is being bartered inside the palace. It is the first time that Kya wonders whether war would be better than this peace held together by long arguments or anxious arms races or ill-considered political marriages.

Zuko finds her hiding in the back of the palace, sitting under a clothesline that the maids have filled with wet laundry that blows in the wind and almost keeps her from view. It would have worked better if she were wearing red, but after a lifetime of Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, Zuko knows better than to say so.

"I don't want to marry you."

Zuko stands perfectly straight next to her, looking down his nose at his betrothed (the word nauseates him a little, now that she mentions it). "Well I don't want to marry you either."

Katara's head jerks up. "Why not? Is there something wrong with me?"

Zuko jumps back, wide eyed and just a bit startled. "No! Of course not!"

"It's my nose, isn't it?" She sniffles and puts her chin in her hands.

Zuko cautiously steps closer. "Your nose is fine."

"No it's not. It's ugly."

Zuko frowns. Girls are crazy, and noses are by no means his area of expertise. "Girls are crazy."

Katara takes a halfhearted swing at him, and Zuko jumps back again. "Sokka says it's a cowpig nose and Azula thinks it looks funny!" Zuko stares down at her. As far as he can tell, it's a perfectly normal nose. She looks up at him again. "I wish I had a nose like yours."

"Like mine?" Zuko is stymied. He's never given his nose any thought.

"If I pinch my nose like this-" Katara pinches her nose as if she's about to jump into a river or the ocean, and her voice goes flat. Zuko can barely keep a straight face at the nasally tone. "Thenb by bnose looks finbe."

Zuko considers his betrothed (and he still hates that word) for a moment. He reaches up to the clothesline and pulls a pin off. "Here." Katara's eyes light up as she takes the clothespin from his hand, and she bounces up from the ground with an energy Zuko is not prepared for.

"Thanks Zuko!" She wraps her arms around him and puts the pin on her nose. "Thbis kinda hurts."

"Prince Zuko."

Katara gives him a look, and Zuko has a bad feeling he's going to be seeing a lot of that look in the future. "We can be friends if you want," she offers.''

Zuko supposes he doesn't have much to lose; he's never really had a friend before, unless you count Sokka, which he doesn't because Sokka gets a kick out of trying to beat him up (Zuko likes to think he's being noble by going easy on him). "Okay."

"You have to promise we'll be friends forever." Katara holds out the clothespin she's removed from her nose to make talking easier. "Swear on this clothespin. Put your hand on it."

Zuko reaches out to clasp her hand, the clothespin between them. "I swear."

As it turns out, Zuko's bad feeling is unfounded. The peace and the betrothal dissolve the following year when Avatar Aang dies, and the Fire Nation begins a campaign against the Water Tribes. The Southern Raiders attack Katara and Sokka's village when Katara is ten, looking for any last waterbenders, and Kya is killed because they aren't taking prisoners today. Katara and Sokka hide in an underground bunker with the village children, and Katara holds little Korra close to her as the villagers scream for mercy high above them. No Avatar is found, and the Fire Nation turns its attention to besieging the Northern Water Tribe.

But now the Southern Tribe is decimated, hungry, and angry. Katara has lost her mother. Her father abandons her to attack the people who took his wife. Sokka plays soldier. And Katara is tired, hungry, and angry.

Ozai sends the raiders to the south again, but they come up empty. Sozin's Comet comes and goes, and the Northern Water Tribe is melted into the sea. Princess Azula loses her mind and her long vanished mother appears to her in mirrors and windows. Prince Zuko follows the example of his mother and vanishes into the night, though there are rumors he's taken some of his father's best men with him and promised to stop this war, but those are just rumors. Rebels and pirates, Sokka and the warriors he trained among them, roam everywhere; the world descends into chaos. Katara masters waterbending by years of trial and error. It's worth it in the end.

"Captain!" A sailor runs up to her, boots thumping on the wooden deck. "A small Fire Navy ship is approaching."

Katara bends herself to the crow's nest and looks out. The ship is flying a white flag, but she's seen this before. They know a waterbender is on this boat, and they'll come in peace and open fire. "Ready the torpedoes!" Her men are yelling on deck, pulling up the anchor and opening the sails. A stiff wind rocks the two ships and rain pelts their faces, but they're determined, and the torpedoes are ready to fire just as a messenger hawk screeches. "Hold your fire!" She shouts, and reaches for the bird. "It could be Sokka!"

Her men pause their work. Some watch the daughter of their chief and some the navy ship, and a few others keep an eye on Avatar Korra, just a child playing in the puddles on deck. Hiding in plain sight.

Katara opens the tube the messenger hawk carries and calls to the crew. "It's a friend!"

There's nothing in the tube, not really.

Just a clothespin.

 _AN: Hey look guys. I finally made it to the end of 2008. 2009, here we come! Shoutout to everybody who's reviewed; y'all are the bomb. Love._

 _In reality, I don't think Katara's nose is anything abnormal. I'm taking a little artistic license with a childhood insecurity I've invented for her (partially inspired by my own nose difficulties and partly by Little Women and Amy March). Also, I confess I've entirely forgotten what it feels like to be eight. Or ten. Or any other age that would be relevant. So if any of you have younger siblings or cousins or whatever and I'm making these poor kids way too old for their age, let me know. I'd consider adjusting accordingly._


	8. Crossover

ZW 2009 Day 1: Crossover

Alea Iacta Est (The Die is Cast)

Heads up: Abortion dialogue.

 _Summary: They lost the battle and war years ago, and badly, and it's only a matter of time before the Fire Lord catches up to them. Azula is merciless when coherent; brutal when unhinged, and they live in a world Zuko wouldn't wish on anyone. Better to never be born at all than to suffer through this. Isn't it?_

Zuko knows the honorable thing. She's standing in front of him with a nervous hope glistening in her eyes. He knows the honorable thing.

But Zuko also knows the cost. "We can't give it a good life, Katara."

She recoils as if struck. "Don't ask me to do that, Zuko."

"Katara-"

"No. You can't make me."

"Katara, it's your body; I'm not going to _force_ you to."

She looks at him like he's betrayed her all over again. "You know I'd never do it, Zuko. Don't ask me to." Her posture is dangerously rigid and her jaw is clenched unnaturally.

He reaches for her, and she jerks away from his hand. "I love you."

She shakes her head slowly. "You don't love me enough."

"That's not fair, Katara." And it's not, really, but Zuko is treading dangerously close to a line he shouldn't cross over. Not with her.

"I'm not ready for this either," she begins, and her body shivers with every breath. "But this is our baby. Our baby, Zuko. We can do this, we just have to work hard and-"

"We're refugees, Katara!" Azula is hunting us down and we don't know if we'll be alive tomorrow. We can't have a baby now!" He's shouting, though he doesn't seem to realize it, and his voice is strained.

Katara chuckles bitterly. "How am I going to tell my baby his father wanted to kill him?"

That's a low blow, and she knows it. "Katara, that's not what I'm saying-"

They descend into intense argument, as they do, and it's bitter, as these arguments are. And when they're out of breath and the light has faded in the sky, they tumble into their tent and curl up in opposite corners, hoping for another morning. The night is not kind to Katara. She pulls the blanket over her shoulders with one hand as the other presses her abdomen, and all she can see is her child being ripped from her. But what bothers her most is that she can't decide whether it's worse for it to be by her hand or by Azula's. Her mind jerks between dreams, from one gruesome image to another. At some point in the night Zuko crosses over the invisible gulf between them and curls around her, but he's gone when she wakes.

The sun rises again, dark orange over purple clouds, and she shuffles out of the tent. Zuko has been meditating by the fire since the first rays, and he turns his head toward her. "Well?"

"I'm going to give him a chance, Zuko."

He nods, and pushes himself off the ground. "Pack your things. Azula's just docked near Makapu. We need to move."

Katara knows him well enough to understand he's not pleased. There will be arguments, and heated ones. Ultimately, though, they both want the same thing for this baby; that is, that he not suffer needlessly. But Katara is inclined to think that life is worth something, that beauty can come from pain. Zuko has taught her that.

It will be hard. It may not be worth it. But spirits help her, the die is cast, and she's going to try.

 _AN: On the one hand, we know Katara would probably fall into a pro-choice camp, were she in a modern setting. But she also has a very intense maternal instinct, and I suspect that when put in a situation like this she'd keep that baby whether anybody thought it was a good idea or not. And I know this isn't really what "crossover" was intended to refer to, but I think it fits. It's very much a Caesar crossing the Rubicon decision. Anyway, hope y'all liked it, or at least got something out of it. As always, I welcome reviews; however, being that I know this is a politically charged topic, let's all be civil. Zuko and Katara say things that I thought were consistent with their characters rather than what I think on the subject (but if anybody wants to chat about this I'm open to a PM. Debate is fun). Thanks much in advance :)._


	9. Blood

ZW 2009 Day 2: Blood

Good Deeds

 _Toph endures a moment of embarrassment while Zuko and Katara are dealing with Yon Rha. To console her, Sokka recounts an episode of Zuko's less than stellar decision making._

Sokka groans at the squickiness of it all. Stupid Katara. Stupid Zuko. Stupid revenge.

Toph perches on the edge of the fountain. Her bangs fall over her face and she wiggles farther off the edge. "This sucks."

Sokka makes a face. "No kidding. I'm the one trying to scrub blood out of your clothes!" His voice cracks on the last word, and Toph snorts.

"At least you weren't walking around ALL DAY before some pebbles-for-brains told you that you had blood on your clothes the whole time!"

As the resident pebbles-for-brains, Sokka can only scrub harder in protest. It's true he ignored it all day, but Aang could have said something.

Toph interrupts his thoughts. "When's Suki getting back?"

"Fruit gathering is a delicate process, okay Toph?"

She blows her hair out of her face. "Delicate?" There's an edge of mockery to her voice that Sokka is none too pleased to hear.

He pouts. With everything he's doing for her she doesn't have to pick on him. "Look Toph, Suki will be back soon to deal with your-" he lifts one hand out of the water and gestures wildly. "-lady problems."

Toph crosses her arms over her chest violently. She's silent for a moment, brooding as hard as Zuko. "Don't you know _anything_ about this?" she demands, glaring at him more intensely than a blind girl had any right to, in Sokka's humble opinion. "You have a sister."

"Hey, I stay faaaaar away from Katara when this happens, okay. It's not pretty."

"Snoozles, you know your voice cracks way too much for anybody to take you seriously, right?"

"I can be taken seriously!"

She snorts sharply. "Sure."

Satisfied that he's carried the day, Sokka returns to the bloody cloth. "Listen Toph. You know how Katara treats Zuko? Well that's how she treats everybody when it's…her time of the month. You've seen it."

Toph grumbles that she has.

"So I run for the hills. You're lucky I'm washing this." Sokka straightens his shoulders slightly with just a tinge of self-righteous pride. "You might not appreciate it right now, but I'm really being cool here." She does secretly appreciate it, he's certain.

"Whatever."

Or not.

"Anyway," Sokka resumes. "I learned to stay away a long time ago. Zuko hasn't been so lucky."

Toph perks up, and Sokka launches into the Vignette of Zuko's Humiliation (or so it's called in his diary. Not that he has one. It's a journal, thank you very much). Because Zuko is a stupid jerkbender who doesn't get how to treat a Water Tribe woman.

Zuko hasn't been in the group long, Sokka realizes one morning when he hears the yelling.

"I'm sorry! I thought you were hurt!"

"What, did you think I'd been stabbed?!"

"Well…" Zuko hesitates. "Yeah?"

"Ugh, Zuko, you're such an idiot!" Katara's screeching is getting closer, and Sokka burrows deeper into his sleeping bag. The sun isn't anywhere near the center of the sky, and he doesn't intend to see it until then.

"Look, there was blood everywhere and I just wanted to make sure you were okay!"

Katara scoffs and storms into camp. Aang lifts his head from Appa's back and rubs his eyes. "Katara, what happened?"

She's fuming, and Sokka, once he dares peek out from the safety of his sleeping bag, thinks he might be able to see smoke rolling from her ears. "He pulled me out of the water while I was bathing!"

Zuko objects that Katara was bleeding, and what was he supposed to do, anyway? Katara screeches that there wasn't that much blood, and he could have asked whether she was okay before he started getting grabby. Zuko sputters that he panicked, okay, to which Katara replies that maybe he shouldn't panic if he values his life.

Meanwhile, the gears are turning in Sokka's head. "YOU SAW MY SISTER NAKED?!"

Zuko's face flushes as scarlet as his robe. "I didn't see anything!"

Sokka explodes out of his sleeping bag and hurls his boomerang in the same fluid motion. That's how history will remember it, anyway (in truth, he caught one foot on the sleeping bag, flailed his arms, fell on his face, nearly cut his nose off with the edge of the boomerang, and stood up with blood trickling into one eye from a cut on his forehead. But nobody needs to find out about that. Ever).

The boomerang strikes Zuko solidly in the back of the head (never leaves Sokka's hand) and Zuko tumbles to the ground in a heap of agony (steps back ever so slightly). Sokka shouts that he'd better not come anywhere near his sister again (squawks incoherently), and Zuko runs for the hills (crosses his arms and glances at Katara warily).

Mission accomplished, Sokka returns to his sleeping bag and commences a long morning nap. Zuko very conscientiously avoids Katara for several weeks, and Katara avoids Zuko with a similar dedication (on top of her usual frostiness, it's tense for everyone).

And if nothing else, Zuko is beginning to understand that touching Katara for any reason, particularly to rescue her, will not do him any favors. No good deed goes unpunished, after all.

 _A/N: I've never figured out how I feel about Sokka and Toph, so read this any way you like._


	10. Jealousy

ZW 2009 Day 3: Jealousy

Stone Cold

Disclaimer: Lyrics from Demi Lovato's _Stone Cold_. Not mine, and neither is ATLA but y'all knew that already.

 _Dedicated to my almost-friend. I hope you've found what you were looking for._

 _Summary: Katara still sees him in her dreams, his skin glowing electric blue and the smell of burning skin tingling in her nose. She feels his breath on her skin and hears him whispering in her ear. But here, in the real world, he's happy, healthy and in love._

 **Stone cold, stone cold**

There's tension in the Fire Nation tonight; the sconces flicker in time with the noblemen's breathing and the servants' chattering is unsettlingly muted. Katara walks into the room surrounded by her friends, and their jubilance strikes a sharp contrast against the stiflingly dark room. Zuko has converted the throne room into a makeshift ballroom, but nobody's dancing. The Fire Nation does not dance, as any one of the local attendees would remind anyone who asks. Everyone else isn't sure whether that means they're permitted. Aang makes short work of the awkwardness and pulls an Earth Kingdom noble's daughter in for a dance.

 **You see me standing but I'm crying on the floor**

Her eyes scan the room. Sokka has the unenviable task of trying to sweep Suki off her feet without dropping his crutches. She can't see Zuko, but there, in the corner, standing as straight as a sword, is Mai. Katara narrows her eyes. Mai is a threat (to Aang, she tells herself). The other girl stands apart, observing everything with her cold eyes and holding just enough of a smile to seem polite but leagues away from friendly. She's probably bored, naturally, and Katara can't help but think there wasn't much point in her coming at all.

 **Stone cold, stone cold**

It doesn't matter. Katara returns her attention to finding Zuko, and to her surprise he's talking to people. His hair is just a little too long and she thinks he needs to shave his chin.

 **God knows I tried to feel happy for you**

He makes his way across the room, and Katara wonders (hopes) if he's looking for her. He's not. There's a soft smile on his face he's never given her, and Mai seems to be regarding him with an almost fondness as he slips through the restless crowd to find her. When he reaches her, he stands there with all the awkwardness of a young man not quite sure where he stands. Katara can't hear what Mai says to him, but Zuko fights a smile and extends a hand. Mai rolls her eyes, and they melt into the shadows.

 **Know that I am, even if I can't understand**

She follows them, because somebody has to make sure Mai doesn't kill him. They almost disappear into a dark corner, and they certainly don't dance but they aren't exactly standing still either. He's holding her loosely, and she seems to be tolerating it (nobody dances in the Fire Nation. Certainly not Mai). Katara can't understand a relationship with so little affection; it baffles her, but Zuko seems lighter somehow. And for that she can be happy.

 **I'll take the pain**

But it still slaps her harder than she thought it would, seeing him with someone. Seeing him with Mai.

 **Give me the truth**

She approaches him late that night, after the palace is asleep and the party, if she can call it that, has dissolved into a low buzz in the streets. He's in his office bent over the latest version of the treaty with the Earth Kingdom, and he jumps when her shadow falls across his desk.

"I thought we had something, Zuko."

"What do you mean?" His brow furrows and he looks at her as though she's started firebending.

It takes her aback a bit. Why else would he save her life? "You took lightning for me." She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin, as if bracing for some invisible impact.

Zuko's forehead smooths and he looks almost relieved. "We're friends." His face softens. "And I didn't want anyone else to get hurt."

"What about after?" She's louder than she meant to be, but when he answers his voice is almost a whisper.

"Katara, I'm sorry."

She turns on her heel abruptly, slams his office door behind her and runs to her room. He shouts her name, and she can hear him pursuing, but she ignores him.

 **Me and my heart, we'll make it through**

Katara cries herself to sleep, but it's more for the humiliation than for a broken heart. Just the same, it burns. Zuko has slowly become one of the best friends she's ever had, and she loves him with everything in her heart. Like a fool, she ruined it. She gave him something she can never get back, and it brought her closer to him than she's ever been to anyone. Somehow it's also driven them apart.

 **If happy is hurt, I'm happy for you**

It doesn't ruin their friendship, in the end, but that's almost worse because he doesn't care. So she kisses Aang on the balcony of the tea shop and drinks him in to fill the hole in her heart. He tries to fill it for her (oh how he tries), but it's not enough. Katara wants what she can't have, and though she wishes she could break the chain between her heart and Zuko's, there's nothing she can do.

 **Stone cold, stone cold**

Fire Nation weddings are beautiful. Mai's hair is pinned up elaborately and the red silk she wears cascades around her like a river of flame. Mai is beautiful, though it pains Katara to admit it. Zuko looks regal in his robe and crown, but Katara can't see them. When she looks at him, she sees a smoking lightning scar and a scorched robe that blows away in the wind. In her memory he looks at her with a wild relief in his eyes, as though he never expected to come out of the fight alive.

 **You're dancing with her while I'm staring at my phone**

Zuko is saying his vows, but Katara doesn't hear them. She hears his breath in her ear and the sharp gasp in her hair when he strains the new skin. She hears him ask her if she wants this and he isn't saying he loves her but she swears she hears it anyway and suddenly it's over and he's lying next to her whispering that he's alive. But he looks feverish, and his wound is angry, his heart stutters in his chest. It's a relief when she's healed him again and he's asleep. His breathing is deep, slow, rhythmic. He's peaceful. And Katara is awake to pick up the shattered pieces of everything she knows and everything she thinks she wants.

 **I was your amber**

When he wakes, he remembers very little, and they don't talk about it. He doesn't tell her he loves her and she wonders if she heard it at all.

 **But now she's your shade of gold**

"I love you."

She's jolted out of her own mind and dragged back to reality. Mai smiles, a true smile, and everyone claps around her, warm and happy and wonderful. But she is cold.

 **Stone cold.**

 _A/N: I'm on a roll this month, guys. Woohoo. And I knowwwww, nobody likes songfics, but I liked the way the lyrics punctuated this. Let me know what you think. I'm planning on doing a follow up to this from Zuko's perspective in a couple of chapters, which should be the Rhythm prompt. So we have Cactus Juice next, then Fireflies (which is going to be interesting, I think), and then Zuko's going to come in here and clear things up, because Katara is a very unreliable and emotional narrator at this point._

 _But please do review because I'm very curious about what y'all think. I know Zuko doesn't come off as his usual honorable self here, which is why I want to do the follow up. But I'll take ideas for that because it's not fully formulated (if anybody wants to give ideas)._


	11. Cactus Juice

ZW 2009 Day 4: Cactus Juice

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Disclaimer: recognizable dialogue belongs to the creators, not me.

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Shifts

 _AU of The Library and The Desert: When Team Avatar wanders into the wrong corner of the Earth Kingdom, they run into some old enemies, get lost in a massive desert, and discover the wonders of cactus juice. What could possibly go wrong?_

Toph just knows this is going to be bad. She lands on shifting earth when she jumps down from Appa, and everything is blurry. There's a hole in the ground somewhere-no, not a hole, that must be the stupid ice fountain Katara wants to see-and it must not be that great because everybody sounds disappointed. Whatever. A hunk of ice is just as lame as any other hunk of ice. She feels familiar footsteps somewhere, but with all the flying around Twinkle Toes does and this stupid sand, she's not sure who it is (or where they're coming from, for that matter).

Things happen in the background, though Toph can't see any of it and therefore doesn't feel obligated to pay it much attention. She hears someone spit and Sokka squawk, coins hitting surfaces and swords slicing the air. And maybe some coconuts. Pretty boring stuff. And so is this stuffy professor guy yammering about historical relics and sky bison and Aang's fruit pies. But since she can't see anything anyway, Toph takes the drink someone puts in her hand and swings her feet up on what she's hoping is a table, and she listens.

An ostrich horse clucks outside, and Appa growls at something but she doesn't think it's the ostrich horse. The rest of the group takes the snobby professor outside, but Toph is going to stay right here, thank you very much, and stay she does. She can hear Aang and Sokka shouting, but whatever they're shouting at moves away pretty fast. Toph cocks her head-they almost seem to be gliding, but who knows what she's actually seeing, anyway. Those familiar footsteps are back, and that's the more important thing because they're accompanied by a voice that doesn't belong to the group.

"Hello, Toph."

"Well if it isn't General Fatso."

She's met with a rumbling laugh. "Not so fat anymore, I'm afraid. All this traveling has been hard on an old man."

A new set of footsteps is approaching. "I get it Uncle, your back hurts, your feet hurt, and you want tea. Well they don't have any tea in this place."

Toph feels it's safe to assume this grouchy sounding jerkface is the nephew that the old man wouldn't quit droning on about. "So this must be Lee." She can feel the heat rolling off the nephew. Weird.

"Who are you?" This guy is awfully demanding, but Toph's kicked the collective butts of people grouchier and tougher than he is.

She thrusts one hand in the direction of the voice. "Toph Bei Fong, best earthbender in the world."

Apparently, Grouchy Nephew Lee isn't in the mood for introductions. "Sure you are. Uncle, can we leave now? There's nothing here."

General Fatso moves a little, probably looking around the room, but Toph can't tell what with this floor being wood on top of sand and all. "Ah. I think I've found our friend."

Color Toph confused. "Me?"

General Fatso pats her shoulder, which nearly throws her off balance. Apparently this posture in the chair isn't as solid as she thought. "No," he chuckles. "Not unless you know a way to get us to Ba Sing Se."

Now that, Toph thinks, is an interesting proposition. "I just might."

…

"No. No way Toph. Nuh uh nope." Sokka clearly has no interest in bringing an old man and his nephew into their group, but Toph is not so easily deterred.

"Oh come on, Sokka. He's a nice old man who gave me tea and told me stories back when I ran away from the group. And if he tries anything I can earthbend his butt."

"What about his nephew, Toph?" Katara's voice holds that simpering, self-righteous worry that always frustrates the ever living mud out of Toph. "What does he look like?"

Toph rolls her sightless eyes. "Oh you know, the usual. Tall, dark, handsome. Just your type, Katara."

Katara seems impressed. "Really? How tall is he?"

Toph snorts. "Sure, ask the blind girl more stupid questions." She ignores Katara's screeching. "What do you think, Twinkles?"

Aang, if anything, seems excited. "Sure! The more the merrier! And I don't usually say things like merry…"

"Pristine, merry, wow Aang, really expanding the vocabulary there." Sokka's voice is dry and sarcastic, and it speaks to Toph on some deep level she wasn't quite sure existed. "Anyway, we don't even know these guys. We can't just let them waltz in here and come with us while we go look for maps of the _Fire Nation_."

Toph has to admit he has a point. But it's too bad, because General Fatso makes very good tea. She trudges back to the tavern, or smoothie shop, or whatever it is, stubbing her toes several times along the way. Stupid sand.

She bumps into Grouchy Nephew on her way in. "Hey! Watch where you're going!"

"Calm your tits." It's something she heard Sokka say once, and she's ashamed to feel herself blushing as the words leave her mouth, but she likes the way it rolls off her tongue. And it leaves Grouchy Nephew speechless. "Where's your uncle?"

Grouchy Nephew pulls himself together. "He went to play Pai Sho with some old guy. He said to wait here."

As the words leave his mouth, Toph feels General Fatso waddling closer. "I believe I've found our friend, Nephew."

"Good," Toph mutters, "because my loser friends don't want to bring you with us."

She thinks General Fatso might be bowing. "Do not trouble yourself, Miss Bei Fong. Lee and I shouldn't have any trouble at all."

"Cool." She punches him in the arm.

"You see, Nephew, I always told you Pai Sho was more than just a game."

…

They finally find the library, after hours of searching, and Toph is pretty sure she'd rather get lost in the sand than have to ride around on Appa one more minute. "You guys go ahead. Books don't exactly do it for me."

Sokka stops, probably to look at her. "Why?" There is silence for a few moments. "Oh. Right."

Toph snorts. "Appa and I will stay right here." The rest of the group hasn't been gone long when Appa begins growling and Toph notices something is changing in the sand, almost like it's being spun around in tornadoes around her and the library. "Who's there?"

Appa growls louder, and she feels the sand whipping more slowly. A ring of people surrounds her, and there are two or three large blobs that she thinks might be some kind of sand sleds. One of them has another two people on it, but they're tied up and don't seem conscious. "Give us the bison."

"Who are you?" Toph sinks into an earthbending stance, for all the good that'll do her.

"Stand aside, girl."

Toph doesn't like the man's voice, and she doesn't stand aside, but flinging sand at him doesn't do much. "What do you want?"

"We're taking the bison." She swears she can hear some kind of evil, greedy smile in his voice.

"No." She focuses on the sand, on each grain, each particle of dirt, and she solidifies it under her feet. It helps, a little. She can see eight people around her, plus the two on the weird sand sled, and they're all in their own stances.

Before she can strike, sand whips her face. "Take the bison! The girl's no threat to us. And leave the prisoners. The bison is worth six of them."

Well, that's just humiliating. Toph gathers as much sand as she can and throws it at the sandbenders. She misses them, but the blow tears the sails off two of the sleds (gliders?) and blows the hats off two of the benders. Which isn't much, but Toph thinks at least her aim isn't horrible. They throw ropes past her that wind around Appa, and she's about to break them when the ground begins to shake. Everything stops for a moment. Appa roars. "The library is sinking!" She tightens the sand around her feet and grabs the library on its way down. She can slow it down with earthbending, but it's heavy and it's sitting in all that awful sand and she just can't stop it and then the sandbenders have Appa and there's nothing she can do about it. They speed away from her, dragging the growling sky bison, and tears slide down her face as she struggles to hold up the library. "I'm sorry Appa."

Just as she thinks she can't hold it up any longer, Aang, Sokka, and Katara fall out of the sky, and she lets the library fall.

"Where's Appa?" Aang's voice has a sharp edge that she's not used to, and all she can do is hang her head and shake it a little.

"The sandbenders took him."

"How could you let them take him? Why didn't you stop them?"

"I couldn't! The library was sinking! You guys were still inside and-"

"You could have come got us. I could have saved him."

There wasn't time! I can hardly feel vibrations out here and they snuck up on me!"

"You just didn't care! You never liked Appa; you wanted him gone!"

"Aang, stop it. You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives." Good ol' Katara, to her rescue.

Sokka has more important things to think about. "Who's going to save our lives now? We'll never make it out of here."

Aang stiffens (or maybe it's a breeze, who knows). "That's all any of you guys care about, yourselves! You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!"

Katara's voice softens. "We're all concerned, but we can't afford to be fighting now."

Aang's voice is cold. "I'm going after Appa."

Toph feels wind rushing through her hair, and Katara's footsteps are faint in the sand. "Aang, wait!" Katara's shouts don't bring Aang back, and when she stops, everything is quiet.

Suddenly, Toph hears a grunt. "This has been a hard week for an old man."

Toph's head snaps up. "General Fatso?"

Sokka spins around and grips his boomerang. Katara reaches for her waterskin. Sokka's voice is too shrill for a warrior, but he postures like one anyway (stupid Sokka). "What are you doing here?"

General Fatso groans and pushes himself up off the glider. "My nephew and I are fugitives. Unfortunately, the sandbenders took quite an interest in the bounty on our heads."

Sokka points his boomerang at the still-unconscious Grouchy Nephew. "Give me one good reason not to kill him." Toph hasn't heard Sokka's voice this hard in a long time, and it sends chills up and down her spine.

General Fatso's laugh rumbles across the sand, and Toph is, for once, confused. "The Fire Lord would have us killed." Katara gasps. Toph is further confused by how happy about that he sounds, but General Fatso has always been an odd one. "My nephew has suffered a strong blow to the head; he is no threat to you."

"Great. Just great." Sokka seems to have relaxed, but not a lot. "So now we're stuck in a desert with no Appa, no Avatar, and two firebenders who used to spend all day trying to kill us!"

"We never meant to kill you!" General Fatso seems to be waving his arms, but Toph is really getting tired of trying to see in this sand. "We were only intending to capture you!"

Sokka scoffs. "Oh yeah. And then what, take us back to the Fire Nation so somebody else could kill us?"

The old man chuckles. "You have such a dry sense of humor."

Sokka tries to bicker for a while longer, until he realizes (to his consternation) that Katara has started using water to heal Grouchy Nephew's head). "Katara! We're in the middle of a desert! Don't use water on him!"

"He's hurt, Sokka."

"So?!"

Katara apparently doesn't really care about using the last of their water and Sokka doesn't care if Grouchy Nephew, whose name is actually Zuko (at least that's what Toph gathers from the conversation) never wakes up. Toph is very quickly bored with the two of them and turns to General Fatso (Iroh?), who is standing next to her placidly. "Can we just leave them here?"

Toph can't see much, but she's pretty sure she can see his belly rumbling.

…

By the time night falls, Zuko is still unconscious, but they've rescued the sand sled glider whatever it is and dragged it and Zuko behind them. Katara hopes that when Aang comes back, he'll be able to airbend into the sails to get them out of the desert. In the meantime, they're heading north to Ba Sing Se, Katara says, because they have to get this information to the Earth King. To Sokka's surprise, General Fatso has no problem with that. Zuko might, but he's not going to wake up any time soon in Katara's estimation.

By the middle of the afternoon, they've drunk most of Katara's bending water. She apologizes for it tasting swampy, but it's all they have.

"Not anymore! Look!" Sokka, obviously, has found something.

"Shut up, peasant," Zuko growls.

"Prince Zuko!" General Fatso waddles to his nephew's side with Katara close behind. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Uncle. Where are we?"

Sokka seems to take issue with being interrupted. "Guys! There's water in these!"

"Just a minute Sokka." Katara seems to have moved closer to Zuko. "You hit your head pretty bad."

She must have put her hand on his shoulder or something Katara-like because Zuko suddenly jumps off the sand sailer (sand sailer. That has a good ring to it) and shouts, "Don't touch me!"

"Patience, Prince Zuko. Katara saved you from a horrible headache." He pushes Zuko closer to Katara. "You can thank her properly while I look at Sokka's plants.

Toph ignores the two of them. She's far more interested in Sokka and Iroh, who seem awfully unsteady on their feet. Sokka mumbles something about a friendly mushroom while Iroh starts dancing with Momo. "Uncle! What are you doing?"

"Dancing with the Avatar, Prince Zuko. He's quite light on his feet."

"Uncle!"

Toph snorts. Whatever was in that cactus juice needed to be bottled up and sent to her parents for their after-dinner drink.

"Why is Toph on fire?"

"Sokka, you shouldn't be eating strange plants." Katara's her usual bossy self, Toph notes. That might be a good thing. "And Iroh, you should know better."

"No kidding," Zuko grumbles. "Last time he ate a strange plant he ended up with his throat swollen shut."

Iroh sputters. "Prince Zuko, I was trying to make tea. Do you think this cactus water would make good oolong?"

Sokka inhales and exhales dramatically. "I suppose, your flamey firebendy-ness dragon sir."

A sinister smile grows across Toph's face. She's going to get her some of that. And she does.

…

Toph wonders if this is what seeing is like. The vibrating lines around her are different than usual. The white lines aren't white at all, and the black is shades of light she doesn't understand. "Maybe you're seeing coloooorrsssss," Sokka slurs, and it occurs to her that he might be right.

It's almost dark, and Katara and Zuko have been herding them north for hours. "We better stop for the night," Katara murmurs, and Zuko must agree because she feels hands on her shoulders forcing her to sit down. She hears the wind, suddenly, and it's very loud but she doesn't really care until a large blob lands next to her. Feels like Twinkle Toes.

Toph swings her fist but misses. "Heyyyy Twinkles. Where've you been?"

"Looking for Appa, Toph, what's wrong with you?"

"The three of them drank cactus juice, Aang. They're a little out of it."

Toph plops down in the sand and begins to pick her toes. "My feet have boogers."

"EW!" Sokka screeches and scoots away from her. "Momo, save me from her grubby little toes."

Something thuds and starts roaring. "General Fatso stop snoring it's hurting my ears." Her voice sounds strange and monotone in her ears.

Katara apparently said something to Aang, because he steps back from her and shouts some nonsense about never getting out of here without Appa. Iroh is still snoring and she's about ready to bend him back to Earth Rumble 6. Everything is so loud and this weird thing going on in her vision is starting to make her dizzy. Toph stops picking her toes and puts her head between her legs.

"Sokka, do you have any ideas to get us out of here?"

Sokka giggles. "Why don't you ask the circle birds?"

Katara sighs. "Zuko?"

Toph doesn't hear what he says. They're just so cute. Blurry, but cute. She wonders what would happen if she tried to bend sand. She can bend metal, what's sand? So she jerks a big pile of sand under Zuko's feet and chortles at his girly little shriek. Next thing she knows, he's lying on top of Katara on the desert floor and apologizing because Toph must have done something and he's sorry and then Toph's laughter is bright and shrieking and she's breathing in sand.

"Toph!"

"Kiss him, Sugarqueen."

"Keep your Fire Nation hands off my sister!"

Toph wishes she could see because she's pretty sure there's drool coming out of Sokka's mouth and she hopes Zuko and Katara look stupid. Iroh keeps snoring, and Toph wonders about the sand glider thingy. "Hey Katara, what about the sail thing."

They better be grateful she remembered. Wait. Who was supposed to be dragging the sailer thing? Was it her? Oops.

That's okay. Katara and Zuko can go get it. Or Aang could. Why hasn't Aang asked about Zuko and Iroh yet, anyway? Toph decides she no longer cares. She's going to take a nap.

When she wakes, Aang is gone. Her head is pounding, but she feels far better than she did. From the sounds of the snoring, Iroh and Sokka are still asleep, but she thinks Katara and Zuko might be sitting together. She thinks she hears Katara offer to heal his scar (what scar?) with the spirit water, and she hears something about mothers, and she hears something about loyalty and the Fire Nation and family. Eh. Sappy stuff. Toph rolls over and goes back to sleep.

And the next time she wakes up they're on the sand sailer, and Katara isn't yelling at Zuko. Zuko isn't growling angsty things back.

"I think Momo likes you," Katara says, and Zuko grumbles as he tries to detach the lemur from his arm.

"I think he's coming down from cactus juice and he's dizzy." Well. Maybe not super angsty. Grouchy Nephew still lives into his name though.

General Fatso has a smile in his voice. "I'm glad we ran into you, Toph. I believe this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship for my nephew."

Toph takes a moment to wonder what would have happened if Iroh and Zuko had been a day behind them, but she decides she'd rather not think about it.

"The sandbenders said they sold Appa to merchants in Ba Sing Se," Aang announces. "So that's where we're going."

She's slightly offended no one woke her up for a confrontation with the sandbenders, but oh well. There will be things to destroy in Ba Sing Se. And she doesn't have to fly anymore. All in all, life is good.

…

A/N: Not super Zutara, I know, but I think the beginning of a friendship is almost as good as anything else. I may continue this later, but we'll see. The muse is starting to wear out a bit.


	12. Fireflies

ZW 2009 Day 5: Fireflies

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Flickers

 _1000 years after the Fire Lord destroys the Air Nomads with the Great Comet, a girl from the Southern Water Tribe finds the last airbender in an iceberg, just outside her village._

The fires are bright and the drums are loud at the beginning of the Winter Festival, but by the time all the village children had gathered around Gran Gran, it's mostly dim and quiet.

"1000 years ago," Gran Gran begins, "the Fire Nation won the war and destroyed the world." The children watch with rapt attention, Katara especially. This is the first time she's been old enough to hear the story. "Fire Lord Sozin waited fifty years, plotting, scheming, waiting for Avatar Roku to die, for the Avatar was an old man. When the Avatar died, he struck. The Fire Lord's forces killed the next Avatar, a boy from the Southern Air Temple, and wiped out all the other Air Nomads."

Katara pulls her knees up to her chin. Maybe she doesn't like this story so much after all.

"He could not have done this but for the power of the Great Comet, which gave firebenders incredible power. Once the Air Nomads, a peaceful people, had been killed, the Fire Lord turned his attention to the rest of the world. He began attacking the coast of the Earth Kingdom, colonizing nearly the entire western coast before he died."

One of the children begins to cry, and his mother shushes him.

"It is important for you children to understand our history," Gran Gran says. The children are quiet. "100 years passed, and the Avatar did not return. The Fire Lord died, and by the time of the next Great Comet, then known as Sozin's Comet, his grandson had come to power. The new Fire Lord finished conquering the Earth Kingdom with the help of the comet, and this Fire Lord's great-grandson use the next one to destroy the Water Tribes, and the world burned."

The children fidget, some cry. Katara wants to leave. "This destroyed the environment. Ash covered the sun and darkened the skies, and even the Fire Nation began to have black snow."

Everybody knows there's no snow in the Fire Nation.

"The Avatar never returned. People began to starve when their crops failed and their livestock died. Our world suffered for nearly 100 years after the destruction of the Water Tribes, and the Fire Nation became just as weak as the nations it destroyed. Benders were slowly eradicated as an anti-bending movement blamed them for the destruction. As time went on without the sun, even the earth grew cold, and the wells were ice."

Sokka elbows Katara. "See Katara, they had it coming." Hakoda shushes him. Gran Gran glares at them but does not stop her story.

"Then, the people left in the three nations combined their resources and technology to create environmental domes, so that we can live in peace even though the world was in ruins. It is because we worked together that all people did not perish. And so you must remember, children, that it is dangerous to go outside, where the winds are faster and colder than the arctic breeze here. The sun is blacked out, and it is not safe."

"How does the dome work?" Sokka is looking up at their father, scientific curiosity bright in his blue eyes.

Katara glares at him. "Quiet, Sokka!"

Sokka rolls his eyes. Gran Gran looks in their direction. "Now we live in the safety of the domes, in the ways of our ancestors. The Water Tribes continue to live in an environment of ice and snow, as we've always done. And finally, children," Gran Gran says, her voice deepening into a warning. "It is important that you never go too far from the village. The dome protects us from the outside world, and the destruction brought by the Fire Nation. Always remember that."

…

Katara is fourteen and Sokka fifteen when they see the outside world, though they don't realize it at the time. Sokka has gotten them lost on one of his stupid hunting trips when Katara spots some ice that seems to be glowing.

"Katara, stay away from there!" Sokka shouts.

"Sokka, look! There's a person inside! He's alive!"

"How could he be alive inside an iceberg?" Sokka squints, and sure enough, some idiot in a lotus pose is hanging out inside an iceberg. Whatever. Things get weirder every day.

"Maybe he's a bender!"

"Katara, benders died out centuries ago." Katara yanks his club off his shoulder and sprints to the base of the glowing iceberg. "Wait! You don't know what that thing is!"

"Sokka, we have to help!"

So they do. The boy in the iceberg turns out to be 1012 years old, and he doesn't understand why they can't leave the Southern Water Tribe. He was destined to be the Avatar, he confesses (the Avatar is a myth Gran Gran told them when they were children, Sokka interrupts), and says his name is Aang. The fluffy snot monster's name turns out to be Appa, and if you make a weird chirpy noise, he swims (super impressive). Despite Aang's insistence that he's an airbender, Sokka never does see him bend any air (though not for lack of Aang trying).

"At least I don't have to be the Avatar anymore," Aang muses after the thousandth time he tries to leave, only to be stopped by Gran Gran.

"Hey, Aang, ol' buddy." Sokka throws an arm around Aang's shoulders. "You know leaving the village is a stupid idea, right?"

Aang looks disturbed? "What do you mean?"

"Why do you think Gran doesn't want you going out there?"

Aang shrugs. "Polar bear dogs?"

Sokka rolls his eyes. "No. The world outside this fancy habitat dome thing-" Sokka gestures wildly "-was destroyed centuries ago. We have to stay in here to survive."

Aang shrugs again. "It can't be that bad. Besides, I have a flying bison. We'll find somewhere safe. I want to see the Air Temples again."

It dawns on Sokka that probably no one bothered to tell Aang that the Air Temples were the first things to go. Oops. Someone should do that before he escapes. Not that he will. Nobody escapes Gran. But still.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take long for Katara to get in on Aang's escapades, and then Gran Gran really has her hands full.

…

Katara thinks they might really do it this time. Aang thinks maybe there would be a hole in the wall where his iceberg used to be, and he's right (Katara wonders why neither of them thought of it before).

"Katara! There are people out here, and they're not Water Tribe."

She pulls herself up into the iceberg. The ocean stretches out in front of her, but she can see a little patch of green in the distance. She's never seen green grass, and she's at once excited and terrified. The people look like ants. "How do you know they're not Water Tribe?"

Aang grins. "Look at them reeeeeeeeeeally closely. See? They're wearing red. Nobody in your village wears red."

Katara gasps. "Fire Nation?"

"Probably," Aang chirps. He scampers up on to Appa's head, pulling Katara behind him. "Appa, yip yip!"

For the first time, Appa flies. "Aang, this is amazing!"

Aang sends her a cheesy grin. Katara breathes in deeply. The air has an odd crispness to it, and the sun is a bright white disk in the sky, defined, radiant, completely unlike the fuzzy, soft glow of home. The wind whips her hair in a way she's never felt, and the green earth that's growing larger is almost unreal. Katara has never been outside the dome before, and suddenly, she's not sure she wants to go back. Gran Gran said the world was dead and dangerous, but Gran Gran is wrong. Katara has never seen anything so alive.

They land on the green shores, just east of the docks, and the island people flock to them.

…

"Prince Zuko," a soldier shouts, bursting through the door and bowling hastily. An airbender and a Water Tribe girl have landed near the docks-on a sky bison!"

"What?!" Zuko spins around and storms out. This is bad. This is very bad. And just his luck that this would happen six months after his father made him governor of Kyoshi. "How is an airbender alive? And how did a Water Tribe girl get out of a dome?"

The soldier has followed him outside and begins jogging to keep up. "Nobody knows, sir. There have been no reports of structural damage. And this is the first airbender we've seen snice the Great Comet."

Zuko marches down to the docks where the strangers have been detained. The airbender looks no older than thirteen and the girl doesn't even look like she's marrying age. Too bad, his inner-Uncle Iroh whispers. Zuko dismisses the thought. He is the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation and Governor of Kyoshi Island, and he will not be distracted by a pretty girl. So there, Uncle.

Zuko knows his ponytail is swaying in the wind, but he hopes the rest of his hair hasn't been messed up. It's been hard keeping it tied back ever since Mai…cut it for him. "How did you get here?" He demands.

"My flying bison," chirps the boy.

Zuko rolls his eyes and glares at the girl.

"I won't tell you anything," she spits. "Not unless you let us go."

He silently fumes for a moment. "Take them to the interrogation chamber," he growls.

"Sir?" The soldier that had followed him looks at him oddly. "That hasn't been used in centuries."

"Just do it!"

The man does not have to be told twice. Thank the Spirits for small miracles. Zuko stomps back to the governor's mansion, trying not to think too much about what he's going to tell his father. None of the domes he monitors had registered a breach. Zhao's territories in the North Pole have dome breaches every week, but those are always reported long before any of the inhabitants find a way out. Although, Zuko muses, they wouldn't have tried to leave anyway. The domes keep people well-fed and healthy. Everyone is happy.

So why does he have two foreigners on his doorstep?

…

Several hours later, Zuko has given up on the airbender. They boy, apparently thrilled to be able to bend again, seems to have airbended his brain somewhere else. Instead, Zuko focuses his attention on the girl (though the only thing he's learned so far is that the airbender's name is Aang, which the boy told him anyway. So on the whole, this exercise is entirely pointless.

"Why did you leave your dome?"

"Aren't you going to ask me what my name is?"

Zuko is silent for a moment. On the one hand, it would be polite to ask. On the other, he's irritated, and when Zuko is irritated he prefers to do away with niceties, so that all the people around him are aware that he's irritated. And now is one of those times. "No. Answer the question."

"I'll answer yours if you answer mine."

Zuko stews just long enough to make both of them uncomfortable. "Fine."

"I wanted to see if the world was still destroyed, like my grandmother told me. Why don't you live in a dome?"

"No Fire Nation citizen lives in a dome. We knew everything had returned to normal 400 years ago. Fire Lord Zurui predicted it when he burned the world. Where did you find the airbender?"

"Fire Lord who?"

"Sozin's great-great-great-great grandson," Zuko snaps. "Answer the question."

"Aang's not an airbender. Bending doesn't exist anymore."

Zuko lights a flame in his palm and the girl's eyes widen. "No, it didn't. You just can't bend in the domes. It would be dangerous to structural integrity. Now where did you find him?"

The girl doesn't speak at first, but when she does, all of Zuko's questions are answered. "I found him trapped in an iceberg. He didn't know about the war, the Comet, or the domes or anything."

Everything falls into place. Well, not everything, but the important things. "The Southern Water Tribe dome must have been built into that iceberg…that's why the alert never showed up!"

The girl looks at him quizzically. "Why do you get alerts?"

Zuko runs out of the room. "Take her back to the Water Tribe! Have her show you where the breach is and fix it!" Suddenly, he feels water turning to ice around his body."

He turns his head and glares at the girl. Her face is white. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I just wanted you to stop."

It takes about an hour to free him, as Katara has no idea how she moved the water, where it came from, or how to move it again. Zuko blows smoke out of his nose. He'll be glad when she's gone.

…

Taking her home proves more difficult than Prince Zuko expected, Katara muses. From what she and Aang can gather from passing guards, Fire Lord Ozai wants to see them himself. Katara is not afraid, and neither is Aang, but the guards seem to be. They're even more on edge around Zuko, who seems to want nothing more than to send her back where she came from and close up Aang's iceberg. She won't let them do that, though. Her village could be so much happier, seeing the real sun and feeling the real wind. Katara wants to see Sokka's face when she bends, too.

"Katara, do you think we should try to escape?" Aang has been more attuned to the gossip than she. "Your grandmother must be worried."

"Not yet. We need to figure out what they're planning in case we have to warn the village. We don't know what the Fire Lord wants with us."

Aang sighs. This cell probably isn't his idea of fun. Sometimes he spins marbles to pass the time, but Katara can tell he misses Appa, and freedom. Mostly Appa.

Zuko comes to visit them after dinner, an old, rather rotund man trailing behind him. He introduces himself with a smile and an offer of a cup of tea.

"I'm Katara," she says, glaring at Zuko. "This is Aang, and we'd love some tea."

The old man beams and produces a teapot (hard to say from where). "It's so nice to meet my nephew's friends."

"They're not my friends, Uncle!"

Iroh laughs heartily. "Very well, Prince Zuko." He smiles slowly. "Why don't we take our tea and walk around Kyoshi? Even prisoners need exercise."

"All right!" Aang jumps up and sprints out the door (why Iroh left it open behind him, Katara will never know). The old man waddles behind Aang, chuckling.

Zuko eyes Katara warily, but steps aside. "After you, peasant."

Katara stomps on his foot on the way out.

Aang is bouncing around the island as Iroh begs him to slow down, just for a moment, because he's not as young as he used to be. The sun starts to fade into the horizon and their shadows grow longer. To Zuko's clear dismay, he and Katara are walking far behind them, together. "So, Zuko-"

"Prince Zuko."

Katara rolls her eyes. "So, Prince Zuko. You owe me a question."

"Fine." A firefly lands on Zuko's nose, and she giggles. "Shut up."

"I want to know how the Fire Nation knew the world was habitable again. And I want to know why nobody bothered to tell the rest of us."

Zuko scoffs. "It was all in the old Fire Lords' plans. They had scientists working for generations to figure out how long it would take for the world to recover after being destroyed."

Katara puts her hands on her hips and stops walking. "That's horrible! You can't just destroy the world because you calculated that everything would be all right!" She throws her arms up. "And what about keeping the rest of us locked in the domes?"

Zuko makes a face. "The only reason the Fire Nation had to destroy the world in the first place was to restore balance. The Water Tribes were overfishing and the Earth Kingdom was cutting down all their trees. Someone had to do something."

"That's not true!" Except that Katara doesn't actually know. Maybe she should have spent more time listening to Gran Gran and less time shushing Sokka. The flickering light from the fireflies becomes more noticeable as the sky grows darker. They're little blinking lights buzzing around Zuko's face, and they cast strange shadows around his scar, and she wonders how he got it but doesn't ask. Zuko doesn't bother responding, but he watches her quietly. "And even if it is true, that's no reason not to tell us things were better." A firefly lands on her forehead, and he brushes it off. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"What, let you all out so you can mess it up again?"

Katara fumes. "Didn't you just get a report on an oil spill two days ago?"

"Shut up!" The fireflies scatter at the outburst. Katara notices that he says that every time she's right, and she decides they're going to have a long, long discussion about this. Something isn't right.

And she's a waterbender. Bending is real.

The fireflies have gone back to fluttering around Zuko's face. "I want access to all of your history scrolls."

"Kind of demanding for a peasant."

"And I want to learn how to bend."

"No."

"Then I'll teach myself!"

"Fine."

"Fine."

"I hate you."

A firefly flutters into her eye. Zuko laughs, a short, sharp bark. Katara hates him.

…

 _A/N: I'm going to have to continue this later, aren't I? In retrospect, I think I tried to do too much with just a oneshot, so expect the continuation in the future. I don't think I'm invested in the concept enough to create a full-fledged multichapter story, but there should be one or two more parts. By all means ask questions if anything is unclear, and I'll see if I can clear it up. I go back and forth on this subject, but I also think Katara doesn't have any particular hatred for the Fire Nation in this universe, so I feel like it makes sense that she'd have a conversation with Zuko. Not opposed to differing opinions though. And I admit to making Kyoshi a lot closer to the South Pole than it is in the show, but I'm going to keep it…for plot?_

 _Thanks to Boogum and jacpin2002, for reading pretty much everything and leaving a whole bunch of reviews. You rock. Thanks also to everybody else who reviewed. Making my day over here._


	13. Rhythm

ZW 2009 Day 6: Rhythm

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Heartbeat

 _Zuko doesn't remember much of what happened between Azula's defeat and his own coronation, but the look in Katara's eyes tells him he's made a horrible mistake. With his track record, he doesn't doubt it._

 _Companion to_ Stone Cold (Jealousy, Ch.10).

"Katara!" He can hear her footsteps thudding against the stone floor, but only for a moment, and then they fade. "Katara!" Zuko spends the rest of the night outside her door, banging on it periodically, and the guards who pass by look at him oddly. "Katara, let's talk about this!" And although he's tempted to burn the door down, he knows from experience that Katara won't talk to him if she doesn't want to, and how would he explain torching the door? So when the sun peeks over the horizon and he can feel the energy coursing through him, he gathers himself up and walks away. It's possible he hears her open the door just after he turns the corner, but Zuko is fairly certain that was just his imagination, so he does not turn back.

He walks back to his office mechanically, forgetting to greet the dignitaries he passes (which causes him many diplomatic problems he doesn't need) and ignoring the servants. Everything during his healing is fuzzy. Zuko remembers Azula in chains, he remembers barricading himself and Katara in his old bedroom, and he remembers that they did things they shouldn't have. He doesn't remember if they talked about anything, he doesn't remember how much time they spent hiding from the world, and he doesn't remember how long it took him to breathe normally. And now Zuko is kicking himself, because those things they shouldn't have done have come back and blown up in his face, like everything always does. Zuko kicks a door. "Ow!"

…

It all comes back to him in pieces, those things they shouldn't have done. He thinks he should apologize to her better, but she seems happy with Aang, and there's no sense reopening the wound, is there? Uncle seems to know something, and he says making amends is always the honorable thing (except he says those things in context of the Earth Kingdom, so maybe it's just Zuko's guilty conscience making trouble where it ought to keep quiet). Zuko knows the honorable thing. What he's having trouble with is whether the right thing and the honorable thing are the same thing.

 _His heart pounds in an unsteady rhythm. Bumbumbum bum-bum, bum-bum, bubum-and Zuko stops paying attention. The skittering beat is only making him more nervous, which obviously isn't helping. He needs something to focus on, anything but the sound of his heartbeat. Katara looks at him with those bright blue eyes, shining with tears and the light of a torch. Her face is cast in a yellow-gold light, and she's at once beautiful and ghostly._

Zuko throws a small piece of bread into the turtleduck pond. He hadn't expected Mai to come to him before his coronation. She had been in prison, he had left her there. Yet there she was, helping him put on his robe- _the one Katara had taken off-_ and she tells him to never break up with her again, which is fine, Zuko has no intention of ever breaking up with anyone again. The only personal decisions he makes wind up being stupid, anyway.

 _He surprises both of them when he kisses her. She surprises both of them when she kisses him back. Zuko's heart pounds loudly in his ears, but the rhythm is steady and he wonders if it's her, if she's bending the blood in it or healing him or something, but when he looks down, she's doing nothing, and the rhythm is still steady._

The turtleducks fight over the piece of bread, and Zuko intends to give them another. Except that there is only one, and there are two turtleducks. Both of them seem oddly attached to the bread (Zuko has a brief inspiration that maybe this is a good metaphor and he is the bread, but then it occurs to him that he loves Mai, and the bread doesn't seem to have an opinion either way).

 _For a while, the kisses are innocent. Zuko's heart pounds in the steady rhythm he's accustomed to until she brushes her hand against his chest, and then he feels the pounding rhythm, but it's not in his chest anymore. He almost laughs. At least the damage to his heart didn't hurt his circulation. Suddenly a rush of euphoria takes over him; he kisses her harder as if to say "I'm alive, Katara, I'm alive and I can move and let's see what happens now."_

Zuko knows now what went wrong. She mistook his excitement for passion, euphoria for love, and he let her. He pushes himself up off the ground, determined to make amends.

"Fire Lord Zuko, please, sit." At least he was determined, until the entire Order of the White Lotus is standing in front of him, dressed in full uniform and holding pai sho tiles. Uncle carries a board.

What's another hour? He'll apologize to Katara after the game.

…

Zuko never does apologize to Katara. The pai sho game leads to a meeting with King Bumi which leads to discussions of Omashu's restoration and reparations which leads to apologizing to Master Pakku for Zhao's invasion which leads to finding Chief Hakoda and offering to facilitate relations between the Water Tribes and rebuilding the Southern Tribe. At some point, he sleeps, and at some point after that, Katara has gone with Aang to Ba Sing Se. And then Katara is kissing Aang on the balcony when he joins the group at the tea shop weeks later, and Zuko thinks it's best to leave well enough alone. Besides, Mai has come with him, and he's certain she's armed. It's better this way.

But then he's getting married, and Mai is promising to love and honor him, and he promises to love and honor her (because he does, and always will). He sneaks a look over at Katara, sitting next to Aang in the front row, and he sees the clench in her jaw and the straightness of her back, and her eyes are miles and years away, in his old bedroom in the old palace. For just a second, just before he puts the ring on Mai's finger, Zuko goes there too. Just to remember, one more time.

 _When it's all over, and he collapses into the mattress, feverish and struggling to breathe and his heart is stuttering, she leans down. Katara kisses his forehead and smiles at him, and then all he sees is glowing blue. She's healing him, because that's what Katara does, and everything is all right. The euphoric high is gone, and Zuko slips into sleep. He wakes periodically throughout the night, and she's there, because that's what Katara does._

And Zuko kisses his bride, and crushes any hope Katara had for them, because that's what Zuko does.

…

 _A/N: I hope this made Zuko look less bad…but I feel like it doesn't. Anyway. He's fun to write, just because he's so self-loathing but also dorky. And melodramatic, so on the one hand I'm kicking myself for that last line but on the other it seems fitting. Oh well! XD_

 _Love to all reviewers._


	14. Lick

ZW 2009 Day 7: Lick

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Wherein Eva takes a break from writing anything remotely serious. This is decidedly crackish.

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Zuko Hates Everything

 _Zuko hates everything. There he was, minding his own business, when suddenly he walked into a giant glowing thing. Now he's fat and hairy, and he's pretty sure he has a tail._

Zuko hates everything. He's not sure what happened, but the last thing he remembers was stomping toward a weird glow in the middle of the Earth Kingdom. Come to think of it, he must have been stomping toward it because the Avatar was headed that way. Zuko lifts a paw to smooth back his ponytail when he realizes something crucial: He has a paw.

"Uncle!" Uncle is nowhere to be found. Zuko cranes his neck and tries to look back at the light. To his dismay, all he sees is a flash and a doddering old tortoise turkey. "Uncle?"

"Ah, Prince Zuko, I was wondering where you went." The tortoise turkey cocks its head, and its gray beard (gobbler?) quivers with repressed laughter. "You do make a handsome platypus bear."

Zuko growls. "We need to get out of here."

Uncle the tortoise turkey chortles. "One does not simply leave the Spirit World, Platypus-Bear Zuko."

Zuko fumes. He thinks if he were in the real world, smoke would be coming out of his bill. Except that smoke is coming out of his bill, and he's suddenly feeling rather warm (clearly, platypus bears are not born firebenders). But if he's in the Spirit World…

Zuko gives up trying to figure out the rules of this place. It's exactly how he imagined the Spirit World would be; there are dark clouds swirling around him, but somehow the space directly above Uncle's head is bright and sunny. It's humid, and Zuko thinks that with his luck it's likely to start raining any moment. Dust clouds puff up in the distance, followed by loud booms. A blue platypus bear thunders down a hill toward him, roaring loudly.

"Uncle?"

The tortoise turkey's eyes are as large as saucers. "I think she's running at you, Prince Zuko."

Uncle proves to be correct. The giant blue platypus bear slams into Zuko and both of them tumble to the ground. "Hey! Watch it!"

The blue platypus bear throws ice at his head (where did she get ice?) and glares at him. Zuko glares back. Uncle drags himself over to them as best a tortoise turkey can. "Who'd like some hot, jasmine tea?"

"Uncle! There's no tea here!"

Uncle lifts one eyebrow (it's strange to see a turkey head with large, bushy eyebrows). "Look under your tail, Nephew."

Zuko bends down and looks between his legs. To his astonishment, there's a large, red egg under his tail that randomly splits open. The top seems to jump out, the sides fall off, and suddenly there's a full tea set with tea and strange looking cookies. He looks at the tortoise turkey for help. Said tortoise turkey crawls toward him and motions him out of the way. Zuko narrowly misses tipping everything over as he steps out of the way. Being a platypus bear is hard, and Zuko hates everything.

He hears a giggle from the blue platypus bear. "What's your problem?"

The giggling stops. "What's _your_ problem?"

Zuko stomps his foot. Uncle shrieks at the nearly spilled tea. "What do you want?"

The other platypus bear spins around, narrowly missing him with her tail. "I don't know. You're the enemy."

"I am?"

She shrugs. "I think so."

"Oh. Sorry." He scratches the back of his neck nervously.

Apparently it's enough of an apology for her because she flip flops her large, webbed feet over to him and opens her mouth. Zuko looks at her. She licks him.

Zuko jumps back, hollering profanities and narrowly missing the tea set (again). "Why would you lick me?!"

She looks at him, dumbfounded. "My saliva has special properties. I didn't know if it would work, but I thought it might heal your scar."

Briefly, Zuko wonders what platypus bear with a scar looks like. Is he missing hair over one eye? He looks down, hoping a mirror will show up because now he's curious (and apparently this weird Not-Spirit World can read his mind because a pond forms under his feet and Zuko can see that he has a very handsome bear head. Naturally, he then falls into the pond and is summarily soaked.

…

Zuko jerks awake, flailing in his sheets. It was all a dream. He doesn't have a bill. And he's not horribly indebted to a polar platypus bear whose eyes look suspiciously like that Water Tribe girl's. Thank everything good and lucky in this world. He hates everything, but if he were actually turned into a platypus bear and beholden to a peasant, he would hate everything tenfold. Just the same, she was attractive, for a platypus bear.

…

 _A/N: dedicated to t-rex989, who requested quite some time ago that I do the Avatar characters as animals. This isn't quite what we envisioned at the time, but the story decided it had a mind of its own (as it does). I'll likely give the subject another go when I'm feeling more serious. It's a little crack-fic-ish, but I feel like this collection needs that. Love to reviewers :)_


	15. Family

ZW 2010 Day 1: Family

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The Perils of Marrying Katara: Zuko's Tribulation

 _Katara's family welcomes Zuko to the family as only Katara's family can. Zuko wonders, briefly, whether his new bride is intentionally allowing this misery._

Sokka comes up behind him and slaps his shoulder just as Zuko has taken an inadvisably large gulp of arctic wine. They just had to have a second ceremony in the South Pole, didn't they? "Just so you know, Katara's a pain to live with. And super picky about stupid stuff. Good luck."

Zuko coughs and hacks for a moment, alternating between letting himself suffocate on the alcohol and trying to cough through the burn that's twice as intense on the way back up. "You're-" Zuko stifles a particularly forceful cough "-just telling me this now?"

Sokka grins far more widely than Zuko feels is proper at a formal event and slaps his back (it's slightly harder than the last slap, and Zuko wonders if there's a reason Sokka keeps hitting him. Or at least he does until his attention is slightly diverted by the sudden need to find the nearest iceberg and throw up everything in his stomach). "Eh. Must have slipped my mind."

Zuko narrowly misses the next slap to his back. "Thanks."

Sokka saunters away, leaving Zuko to wonder what he's gone and gotten himself into this time. Katara can't be that bad, can she? Sokka's probably just tired of having to put his dirty socks in a neat pile or something. On the other hand, she always ran a tight campsite…Maybe he needs more arctic wine after all.

…

He sees Hakoda approaching him out of the corner of his eye. For a moment Zuko debates running and hiding. As it turns out, he should have.

"Fire Lord Zuko."

"Uh, just Zuko is fine, sir."

Hakoda grins, and Zuko wonders if it's his imagination or if his new father-in-law has suddenly grown tiger shark teeth. "I think it's time Sokka and I took you ice dodging."

Suddenly, Zuko is unconcerned. Can't he just melt the ice?

(It's really too bad no one was kind enough to mention that Hakoda had planned for that. They went to the coast of the Earth Kingdom and dodged rocks. As Sokka so helpfully pointed out, if he could do it, there was no reason Zuko couldn't, and there wasn't really any good argument against that.)

…

Zuko has escaped Hakoda, only to be cornered by Gran Gran (whom he's been carefully avoiding, what with how snarkily she'd accepted his apology for the manhandling.

"Young man!"

Zuko stops in his tracks. "Uh, good evening, Great and Mighty Chief's Mother-"

"Did Sokka tell you to say that?"

Zuko looks as though he's sucked on a lemon. "He said that was the proper-"

Gran Gran barks a laugh. "We don't have titles here. Now come, it's time for the ceremonial sea prune stew tasting."

"Sea prune stew tasting?"

Gran Gran nods sagely. "Of course. Katara is waiting for you."

Zuko can tell, upon Gran Gran telling Katara that it's time for the traditional sea prune stew ceremony, that his new wife has never heard of this in her life. Unfortunately for him, she is more than happy to play along. Zuko suddenly realizes that Sokka learned the great majority of his sense of humor from his father and grandmother. Thank the spirits Katara just tells stupid jokes.

Regrettably, he says that part out loud and quickly finds himself soaked in sea prunes.

When he returns to the Fire Nation, he is informed his South-Pole-friendly clothes cannot be cleaned and will have to be burned. Aside from the fact that the palace smells like burnt sea prunes for three days afterward, Zuko thinks that's the best thing to come out of the South Pole trip (because now he never has to go again, right? Wrong, but Zuko doesn't know that yet). Except being officially married to Katara, of course.

…

A/N: A little less crackish than the last one, but I think I'm not ready to get angsty again. I'm trying to get in the zone for Tinted Windows and it's just not working. I also took some liberties with Gran Gran, just because I'm really not sure how she'd react to Zuko. Reviews welcome! Thanks to all those who have already reviewed/followed/favorited. Y'all cool.


	16. Change

ZW 2010 Day 2: Change

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Baby Steps

 _When the war ends, the Fire Nation must adjust to peace. Fire Lord Zuko is forced to balance the discontent of the people at home with the anger of the people abroad._

Katara glares frostily at the Earth King, and her tone is sickly sweet. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, I refuse to marry the Fire Lord."

Zuko glares at her. "Thanks, Katara."

Kuei looks back and forth between them and wrings his hands. "Please, just consider it. The Dai Li will have me deposed if I don't get this concession from the Fire Lord."

Katara jerks her hands up to her hips. "So I have to marry _him_ just so you can sit on your throne and have parties with your bear?"

Zuko has had enough. "Shut up, Katara. You think I want to marry you?"

She ignores him. "And what if I don't want to leave the South Pole? What if I already have a fiancé waiting for me, huh?"

Zuko's eyes pop out of his head. "Do you?"

"Of course not!" She snaps, and she turns back to the Earth King. "But what if I did?!"

Kuei shrinks into himself and mutters meekly, "But you don't…"

"Ugh!" Katara spins on her heel and stomps out of the room, and the two men notice that the air is significantly colder.

"You think she'll do it?" Kuei whispers.

Zuko shrugs. "Maybe Uncle can talk her into it."

…

Uncle Iroh, fearsome general and Dragon of the West, proprietor of the greatest tea shop in Ba Sing Se and counsel to the Fire Lord himself, sips his tea quietly. Katara clutches her cup across the table, fuming.

"I know what you're going to say, but I'm not going to marry him."

Uncle takes another sip and raises his eyebrows.

"I'm not!"

"And why not?"

Katara huffs. "Because my Gran-Gran always taught me that I should marry for love, like she did."

"And she had the pleasure of doing it twice!" Uncle strokes his beard. "Perhaps I should make some lady friends of my own."

Katara sighs heavily. "Can't you just tell me what to do about Zuko?"

Uncle raises a single eyebrow and a smirk curls his lips. "I thought you had decided not to marry a man you didn't love."

Katara's cheeks flame, and Uncle laughs. "I don't love Zuko!"

"Of course not, my dear. More tea?"

Katara takes the tea.

…

 _Dear Zuko,_

 _I'm not saying I love you, because I don't, and I'm not saying I'll marry you because I don't want to. But Dad and Sokka think I have to consider all my options, and Sokka wants to know if he'll get cool swords if he's the brother-in-law of the Fire Lord. I told him he'd have to fix his own pants because Fire Lords' wives are above that._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Katara._

…

 _Dear Katara,_

 _You don't have to marry me! I just really want you to. But not because I love you or anything just because the Earth King hates me and my people hate me, but they really like you (_ _at least the Earth King does)_ _. So it would just be really nice if we could do that. Yeah._

 _His Excellency, Fire Lord Zuko_

…

 _You're too pretentious for your own good, Fire Lord Frownyface (Sokka's idea, just for the record)._

 _Katara_

…

 _Shut up._

…

Hawky doesn't take very many letters back and forth before he perches on Sokka's arm one morning and vehemently shakes his head when Katara tries to send him back to the Fire Nation with a response to Zuko's scrap of paper. Which is a shame, considering she spent nearly three hours on a long-winded letter. However, the Earth King doesn't have the patience for a long courtship (Katara scoffs and informs him and his bear that her brief correspondence with the Fire Lord can hardly be considered a courtship). He shifts his weight on the ice uneasily, and his shivering bodyguards glare at her as if it's her fault they've been dragged down here. Too bad for them.

She doesn't speak to Zuko or the Earth King again for nearly eight months, but Sokka drags her to a summit in late summer. Aang has decided that a multicultural exchange of dances and food is the best way to maintain the peace. So, she makes a dress that's entirely blue, with enough Water Tribe emblems that if anybody doubts her heritage he must be as blind as Toph.

Aang walks up to her with a grin stretching across his face. "Hi Katara!"

She smiles. Even at sixteen, the Avatar still has the carefree chirp in his voice he had when he was twelve. Even if his voice has deepened a bit. "Hi, Aang."

"So I hear you and Zuko are getting married." He shoots her a sly smile and pulls her into a dance.

"Zuko and I are not getting married."

"Why, you miss me?" He's teasing her, and she's grateful. He had been so heartbroken at thirteen, and he swore he'd never get over her.

She sees an Air Acolyte watching them from across the floor, and she chuckles at him. "Just a little."

"I think Zuko has a crush on you," he whispers, loudly.

"Zuko doesn't have a crush on me, Aang."

"Okay Katara!" He spins her around and dips her as the music ends. "Whatever you say."

Katara thinks his smile has turned entirely too devious for her taste. Especially considering Zuko seems to be walking toward them.

"You never answered my letter."

"Hi Zuko, nice to see you too," Katara chirps. He scowls. "Besides, you call that a letter? It was a scrap of paper telling me to shut up."

He rubs the back of his neck. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Hmph!" She turns on her heel and stalks away, struggling to hide the smile fighting its way across her face.

…

They begin sending letters again, but by regular post after the messenger hawks begin boycotting the Fire Lord.

 _Dear Katara,_

 _There are riots in the capitol again. I've tried bringing the colonists back, but they say the Earth Kingdom is their home. The Earth King would be willing to make them citizens, but the people don't want anything left of the colonies. The New Dai Li are pushing the Earth King to require me to marry-they want a minder-and he's trying to be firm about it, but it's the Earth King. I'm worried that if I don't do what he says there will be a coup, and then everything is worse. Please marry me, Katara. I know I'm not what you want, and I know you could do better. Just please think about it._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Zuko._

Katara smiles. Time and experience have made him more determined, more serious. Still awkward, but that's Zuko.

 _Dear Zuko,_

 _I'll think about marrying you. But I want a place to practice bending when I come to the Fire Nation._

 _Love,_

 _Katara._

She sends the letter with a mixture of nerves and a strange, wild glee. It doesn't make sense to leave home, not when she was getting so comfortable there. But Zuko needs her, and maybe marrying him wouldn't be so bad.

Sokka says of course it will be so bad. Hakoda shakes his head. Gran Gran asks if that wasn't the boy who stormed into the village and started making demands. Katara waits for the third ship out of the Southern Water Tribe, to give Zuko enough time to reconfigure his turtle duck pond, and she goes.

Maybe it will be enough. And maybe she does kind of love him, in a friendly kind of way.

…

The people receive her tentatively, as if they know she's technically here to be a minder but they also hope she'll be impartial. Some of the riots die down after the wedding, but fringe groups begin protesting. The heir to the throne will be half-foreign, they shout, unacceptable for the purity of the royal line.

They're feeding the turtleducks when they receive the latest reports on the city. Zuko rolls his eyes. "They'll get over it, 'Tara."

"What if they don't?"

Zuko shrugs. "Your presence is mitigating the threat of massacres on the Earth Kingdom coast."

"Don't use your Fire Lord voice with me."

He blushes. "Sorry."

She smiles at her husband (husband is such a weird word to use with Zuko). "The Earth Kingdom people aren't going to kick the colonists out of their homes?"

Zuko sighs. "Aang wants to make the oldest colonies an international center. Most of the native people seem to feel better knowing that there's no chance of the Fire Nation owning their land. The colonists just want to stay. And everyone is more confident I won't do anything stupid with you keeping an eye on me."

"It can't be that simple."

He shrugs. "It's not, but it's better than it was. If Aang's plan works, maybe there will be peace."

"Baby steps," she muses.

"Yeah."

It's a start, and Katara thinks maybe marrying Zuko wasn't such a horrible idea. She's not sure she loves him, but she loves the world without war, and this seems to be keeping it together. She leans closer to him and kisses his cheek. "I'm going to get more bread."

Zuko nods. "Hurry back."

…

It takes nearly a year for things to come together, but Aang's plan works. Zuko walks her to bed after the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Republic City.

"I'm proud of you, Zuko," she whispers.

He rests his hands on her hips where they stand outside her bedroom. "Thank you, Katara. For everything."

She pulls him into a hug and holds him tightly. "Of course."

Zuko runs a hand through her hair, loosening her hairpiece and pulling curls loose. He trails one finger along her jaw and tilts her head up, looking at her for a beat before bending down and pressing his lips against hers. It's a little awkward, and they're both out of practice, but his lips are soft, and she kisses him back. Pulling away, he smiles a little, and steps back. "Goodnight, Katara." He tucks a curl behind her ear and kisses her forehead.

As he moves to turn away from her, she reaches out and grasps his arm. "Zuko," she breathes. "Don't go."

He stays.

…

 _A/N: I feel like romance is a bit lacking in this series (somewhat surprisingly, since it's centered around Zutara week, lol), so here's some actual romantic development for y'all. It was interesting to write; honestly I've not spent a lot of time writing Zuko and Katara actually falling in love, so I hope I did them justice. Reviews welcome!_


	17. Pain

ZW 2010 Day 3: Pain

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Semantics

 _"One thing you're going to have to remember, Zuko: Sympathy and pity aren't the same thing."_

The third assassination attempt in two weeks is moderately more successful than the last. Zuko cradles a broken arm and blood drips from the deep cut across his forehead. "You didn't have to come." Gingerly, he sinks into bed and leans back against the headboard.

Katara rolls her eyes and pulls water from her pouch. "It's not like I came from the South Pole, Zuko. I was at the market."

"The palace doctors could have handled it." He hisses as she stretches the broken arm out. "Ow!"

"I'm sorry but I have to set it."

"Just go back to your shopping."

"No. Zuko, what's wrong? Just let me heal you."

He glowers at her for several moments, until the silence becomes uncomfortable. "I can handle this myself," he mutters.

Katara huffs as she swirls the water around his arm. It glows bright blue, and he grits his teeth. "You don't have to handle things yourself. That's why you have friends. We want to help you."

He narrows his eyes at her. "Why?"

She buries the urge to throw her hands in the air or put them on her hips. "Haven't you ever had friends? That's just what people do for other people they care about."

"No."

Katara pulls back and eyes him, shifting between surprise and sadness. "You've never had a friend before?"

He shrugs the shoulder not attached to his slowly healing arm. "Azula scared most of them off. And I'm the Fire Lord. I don't have friends, I have people trying to kill me and people who tolerate me living."

"Oh, Zuko." She gently lays his arm down on some pillows and cautiously reaches to hug him. He pulls away.

"I don't want your pity."

"I don't pity you."

He looks at her blankly. "Sure."

"I don't! I have sympathy for you, Zuko." She takes a deep breath. "I feel horrible that you didn't have this kind of support, but that's not pity. Feeling for you isn't the same as feeling sorry for you."

"What's the difference." His gold eyes challenge her, and the scarred side looks angry.

She reaches for the cut on his forehead, hand gloved in water. "Sympathy doesn't look down on people." He has nothing else to say, but she's not sure he's convinced. "One thing you're going to have to remember, Zuko: Sympathy and pity aren't the same thing. Friends can share your feelings. That's sympathy."

He flexes the fingers of the freshly healed limb and averts his eyes. Katara wonders if she's reached him, or if he's still convinced she pities him. She knows the pain of feeling pitied. She felt it after her mother died, for the poor little girl, the little victim of the Fire Nation, the latest of many. She felt it from the Northern Tribe when Pakku embarrassed her during their fight. What she feels for Zuko is nothing like that.

But he still won't look her in the eyes. Maybe sympathy is given, and pity is felt.

 _A/N: Guess I was feeling philosophical? Thanks to everybody who has reviewed so far; y'all keep me inspired._


	18. Date

ZW 2010 Day 4: Date

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Sokka and Toph Take Up Stalking

 _Katara and Zuko get to know each other better. Sokka and Toph make a point to keep an eye on them._

"Stop moving! I can't see!" Toph hisses.

Sokka strokes his beard and sinks lower in his seat. "Sorry, geez."

She shoots him a nasty glare. "It's harder since _somebody_ insisted I wear shoes."

It's not like his sister and the jerkbender would recognize her immediately without her shoes or anything. No, they're just as blind as Toph. "Just tell me what you can see!"

Toph rolls her eyes and goes very still. "They're just pushing the food around on their plates," she mutters. "This is boring. Can we go trash a bar now?

"No!" Sokka snaps, just a little too loudly. The people at the tables around them stare at him, and Sokka finds himself nearly underneath his own table, sliding off his chair. "We have to keep an eye on my sister and that jerkbender."

Toph sticks her lower lip out and slumps, resting her chin on her hand. "Nothing's going to happen, you dolt. Zuko's as dangerous as a baby turtleduck."

"Exactly!" Sokka says, jerking up in the seat. "That's just what Katara's going to think, and then she's gonna get all baby sabertooth moose-lion eyed over him, and that's when he'll strike!"

Toph scoffs. "Zuko's going to strike?"

"Toph, I know you can't see and all, but for your information guys like Zuko are always looking at Katara, and I don't like it."

"Guys like Zuko?" Sokka thinks Toph is doing a poor job of suppressing her laughter. "Harmless dorks?"

Sokka is about to respond when he notices a shadow falling across the table. Two shadows, actually.

"Does your brother think we're on a date or something?" Zuko asks, obliviously.

Katara shrugs, obliviously. They walk away, and Sokka suddenly notice the servants trailing behind them, carrying scrolls that look like legalese.

Sokka deflates. Toph cackles at him. "You thought they were on a date."

"I'm just trying to look out for my sister, Toph!" he squawks.

"Can we go get thrown out of a bar now?"

Sokka doesn't see why not, so long as Zuko and Katara are chaperoned.

…

"This is stupid," Toph mutters, bending small figures in the dirt where she's sitting. Sokka glances down at her from his perch in a tree and gestures with his binoculars.

"Shhh!"

"Don't shush me, Meat Head," she snaps.

Sokka presses his binoculars to his face again and strains to see over the tree branch. They're sitting at the edge of a park in Republic City, three days after the founding, and Sokka has decided it's high time Zuko was getting back to the Fire Nation. Or high time Katara got back to the Water Tribe; he's not really picky. His sister and the jerkbender are standing in front of a dilapidated fountain, and Katara is describing Sokka's mechanical plans for it and how they're supposed to interact with waterbending and blah blah blah. Sokka squints through his lenses. It looks like Zuko is less than twelve inches from Katara when he KNOWS an arm's length is the bare minimum. "Toph, can you feel how close Zuko is to Katara?"

Toph snorts. "Far away."

Sokka pulls himself away from the binoculars again and glares down at her. "Helpful."

"They're not on a date you idiot. You can hear them talking about that stupid fountain!"

"Just because they're not on a date now doesn't mean this won't turn into a date while I'm not looking."

"You're turning into a creep."

Sokka gestures wildly with his arms before settling on a face palm with one hand, binoculars in the other. "I am just a brother doing his moral duty of protecting his baby sister!" Toph sees an opportunity. She slams her foot down into the ground, shaking the tree. Sokka loses his balance and hits the ground with an unmanly screech and a loud thud. "TOPH!"

Katara and Zuko come running. "Sokka, what happened?" Katara rushes to her brother and helps him up off the ground.

Sokka rubs his head and grumbles incoherently.

"I think he has a concussion."

Zuko looks at Toph. Toph looks in Zuko's direction. They come to the mutual conclusion that now is the perfect time to slip away and let Katara fuss over Sokka. Zuko does, after all, have a boat to catch, and Toph has an Earth Rumble VII to organize.

Behind them, they can hear Sokka grumbling about how hard it is to be an older brother (no kidding, Zuko mutters).

…

The next time the group gets together, they return to the Fire Lord's house on Ember Island. Suki occasionally thinks her relationship would be healthier if Sokka gave it as much attention as he gives Zuko and Katara. "I think you actually want them to be together," she says, sipping her tea and leaning back in her beach chair.

Sokka looks up from his sand sculpting (he's just finished punching the one that used to be Zuko's head). "No way! Look Suki-" he points dramatically at the pile of sand that was ever so briefly Zuko's head. "-There's no way that jerk is getting anywhere near my sister."

"I thought you liked Zuko."

"I do!"

Suki eyes him skeptically. "Then what's your problem?"

Sokka, for once, has nothing to say.

Suki sits up and takes another sip of her tea. The birds chirp around them and the breeze blows gently, but her warrior instincts are telling her this peace is short lived. Sokka pushes some sand around and avoids looking at her. "Is it hard to see Katara growing up?"

Sokka's expression softens as he looks up at her. "She's my little sister. It was always my job to protect her. I promised our dad when he left that I'd never let anything happen to her."

"And you can't protect her anymore?"

Sokka doesn't answer, but Toph barrels into the vicinity like a komodo rhino. "Hey Snoozles! Katara just told Zuko she'd meet him for dinner at the Grumpy Platypus Bear tonight!"

"WHAT!" Sokka leaps to his feet, whipping his tunic over his head. "They can't go to the Grumpy Platypus Bear without me!" He sprints to the house, and the beach is quiet again. Suki sighs and looks at Toph.

"What?"

"Thanks." Her tone is dry, perhaps caustic.

Toph looks at her quizzically, shrugs, and wanders into the beach house. Suki collapses against the back of the chair and glares at her tea.

…

Sokka returns to the house from the Grumpy Platypus Bear with several boxes of leftovers, looking half contented and half angry. "Toph!" He barks, stomping into the kitchen. She and Suki are sitting at the table talking to Katara and Zuko who, despite Toph's announcement, were not at the Grumpy Platypus Bear.

"Where have you been?!" Sokka squeaks, pointing his finger between his sister's eyes.

Katara gives him an odd look. "Zuko and I were on a date. It was nice." She walks toward the door, smiling.

Toph laughs at him. "Guess there was something going on."

Sokka has never felt more vindicated. But also he thinks he should have put money on this. And he's still going to have words with Toph about sending him to the wrong restaurant.

…

 _A/N:_ I feel like I should really start writing more Aang involvement in these stories, not sure why I don't. What other characters do I neglect?

Grumpy Platypus Bear is partially inspired by the Grumpy Grouper restaurant in Myrtle Beach, SC. If anybody else has already claimed that name for a fictional restaurant, let me know and I'll come up with a new one.


	19. Harmony

ZW 2010 Day 5: Harmony

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Instruments

 _In his teahouse after the war, Uncle Iroh watches the children pair off. They haven't found their way yet, but they're still young, and there is time._

His cheeks puff out and his fingers curve around the cold metal of the tsungi horn. Uncle watches the young people carefully, though he pretends to be consumed by his instrument. Fire Lord Zuko is stiff, but not as rigid as he used to be, and Uncle smiles a little to himself. Zuko has done well.

The Avatar is every bit an airbender, buzzing around the room with the lightness of a cloud and the speed of a small bird riding the wind currents. But he is also calm, which Uncle suspects is a new development, a layer of maturity to go with the unusual responsibility upon his shoulders. Toph is sturdy like the element she bends, and today the scowl engraved on her face has been replaced by a smile (now if only the same thing would happen to his nephew!). Katara is flexible, motherly one moment and a friend the next. Zuko's inner flame has been tempered and controlled by time and experience, but he still lacks patience.

Uncle is unsurprised when Katara joins Aang on the balcony, if only because he's seen this story before. The Avatar has brought peace, he has given her hope and restored balance. And Katara is water; she must push and pull, give and take. She has taken, and now she must give, even if she hasn't realized it yet. Just the same, he reflects, puffing on the mouthpiece of the horn, the Avatar is happy, and Katara is happy, which is a good balance. He sneaks a glance at Zuko, standing rigidly next to Mai and looking at the painting over Sokka's shoulder. A good balance, but imperfect.

Or perhaps it's not imperfect, perhaps he's biased in favor of his nephew, who is just off balance enough around Katara that she's either threatened to kill him or Fire Lord Zuko has a crush. The two emotions are markedly similar (at least in Zuko, whose restlessness can indicate any one of several possible moods.

Katara attaches herself to the Avatar, and Zuko follows Mai around the teashop with equal devotion. Their melodies are soft, soothing, as each instrument moves through the notes. Just the same, Uncle thinks it might get monotonous after a while. They'll need variety; they'll want to play both harmonies and melodies. They must be just different and just similar enough to complement each other. But these things take time. He won't meddle.

There is no discord, thank the Spirits, Uncle muses, but there's not harmony yet either.

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 _AN: Thanks to jacpin2002 for your continued support, both here and on AO3. I always look forward to your feedback :)_

 _I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this one, so I hope y'all get something out of it._


	20. Alternate Universe

ZW 2010 Day 6: Alternate Universe

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Flickers (Pt.2)

 _1000 years after the Fire Lord destroys the Air Nomads with the Great Comet, a girl from the Southern Water Tribe finds the last airbender in an iceberg, just outside her village. She meets the prince of the Fire Nation, and they discover that their new favorite pastime is arguing over archaic scrolls._

Zuko kicks his feet up on the desk and yawns.

"Hey!" Katara swats him with one of the scrolls she's pulled off the shelves. "Put your big, smelly feet under someone else's nose."

Zuko huffs. "My feet aren't smelly!"

"All boys have smelly feet."

Zuko narrows his eyes. "I'm not a boy."

A nasty smirk curls across Katara's mouth. "Oh, so you're a girl?" Really, he sounds just like Sokka insisting he's a man and a warrior. Boys.

"No!"

Katara turns back to the scroll she's bent over and adjusts the candle. "All these scrolls say the same things. The three nations were devastating the climate, so the Fire Nation put a stop to it. But these are also Fire Nation scrolls!"

Zuko lifts his good eyebrow. "So?"

" _So_ the winners write history. This probably isn't how it happened at all."

Zuko protests indignantly. General Iroh chooses that moment to peek into the room with an all too composed face. "Would anyone care for tea? It's jasmine, my favorite."

Katara throws the scroll down. Zuko jerks down to pick it up. "These are ancient works of history, you can't just slam them around like that!"

She sticks her tongue out at him before turning away. "I'd love some."

Zuko gives both of them a sour look. "Uncle can babysit you. I'm leaving."

…

Sokka sits on the ground in the tent, head bowed. Gran Gran stands over him, rigid, cold, menacing (but that's not the worst part). He knows he's messed up, knows Katara was his responsibility; he promised Dad he'd take care of her and he failed and now his sister is missing. "I'll find her Gran, I swear."

"I'm not going to lose two grandchildren in one day. You'll stay here." She puts her hands on her hips (the way Katara does) and sighs. "Stand up, Sokka. Do your chores. Your sister won't stay outside for long."

Sokka's not sure he believes that. But, he muses as he dumps his dirty socks into the washtub, she'd better come back soon. Washing isn't manly work. If she doesn't come back, he'll just have to go get her before the next time he runs out of socks.

…

"I have to stay with her. If I don't, she'll probably do something stupid like accidentally waterbend all over those scrolls."

Uncle lifts his eyebrows over the teacup at his lips. "You've never shown so much interest in preserving our world's history before, Prince Zuko."

"It was never in danger before!" He snaps, glaring at Uncle menacingly.

Uncle shakes his head and moves a pai sho piece. "She's a very pretty girl, Prince Zuko. Finding yourself attracted to her is nothing to be ashamed o-"

"I am not attracted to her, Uncle! She's not my type!"

Uncle's belly rolls when he laughs. "Not your type?"

Zuko flushes. "Not my type."

"So," Uncle chokes out between stifling his giggles. "What exactly is your type, Prince Zuko?"

"This conversation is over." Zuko stomps out of the room. The guards at the door look back in, confused. Uncle chuckles to himself.

As quickly as he'd gone, Zuko walks back into the room, decidedly less angry and looking more like a frightened puppy. "My father is here." His face is whiter than usual, putting the angry red scar around his eye in sharp contrast. He runs a hand along his head, smoothing a few loose hairs, and adjusts his phoenix plume, shifting from one foot to the other.

"Well, I suppose we must greet him," Uncle says, hauling himself up from his cushion on the ground. He tucks his hands into his sleeves and strolls into the hallway, a fidgety Zuko on his heels.

Fire Lord Ozai has always had a tendency toward the dramatic, and his arrival on the island is no exception. He's dropped the gangplank on a rather gilded ship, and a red and gold carpet has been rolled out on the ground. The carpet is lined on either side by Imperial Firebenders holding phoenix flags in one hand and flames in the other. As Uncle approaches the end of the carpet, fire flashes and the Fire Lord appears at the opening in his ship. Zuko pulls himself into a painfully straight posture and clenches his hands at his sides.

The Fire Lord marches down the gangplank, glaring at his brother and son as he walks. As he approaches, his brother bows low, as one does to the leader of a mighty nation, and his son trips over himself to do the same. "Prince Zuko."

"Father."

"You will show me the Avatar."

"Of course," Zuko jerks down in another bow and begins walking toward the holding cell, his father and uncle behind him.

"So, little brother," Iroh chimes in after a near eternity of silence, "can I interest you in some tea? I've been working on a new blend."

The Fire Lord looks down his nose at his brother. "No, thank you."

"What a shame-"

"This is the Avatar," Zuko interjects. They've arrived at the holding cell. Aang is sitting on the floor, meditating in the lotus position.

"Hi! I'm Aang!" He springs from the ground and bows to the Fire Lord quickly, smile on his face. "Can I walk around for a while? It's getting super hot in here." Perhaps for effect, he pulls his collar away from his neck.

Ozai doesn't respond. Uncle shakes his head so subtly he's not sure the Avatar can tell, and Zuko is frozen. The Fire Lord, after contemplating the Avatar for a moment, turns to his son. "Where is the waterbender that was with him."

Zuko pales, looking at Uncle briefly, frantically. "She's locked up elsewhere, Father. I thought it best to keep them separated."

"Bring her to me."

Zuko walks away with as much princely dignity (and haste) as he can muster. Aang looks up at the Fire Lord. "Soooo, I'm going to take that as a no."

Silence, dark and heavy.

…

The third day after they disappear, Sokka has officially gotten restless. The fourth day he spends plotting, the fifth looking at old maps. There's an island not far from the South Pole, named for the last Earth Kingdom Avatar (a myth, obviously). Sokka rubs his chin. A note on the map reads "female warriors" (as if there could be such a thing), and Sokka would bet a month's worth of seal jerky that it's just the place Katara would want to go. Although he's not entirely sure how she'd know to go there. Katara never looks at maps.

And the second order of business is to figure out how she got out of the dome. Sokka finds himself suddenly desiring a monocle and a pipe. And maybe some sea prunes.

…

Katara's head jerks up as the door slams open.

"Let's go, peasant."

"Where are we going?" Katara doesn't get up, but she rolls the scroll she's holding and ties the string around it.

"The Fire Lord wants to see you."

He looks jittery, like lightning hit him and he's still coming to grips with the fact that he lived. "Well maybe I don't want to see him."

"This isn't a joke, Katara."

It's the first time he's used her real name. Katara pushes herself up from her seat and looks at him grimly. "Okay."

He turns sharply toward the door with Katara directly on his heels. "When you meet him, you should bow, and don't say anything stupid. Oh-"

Zuko turns back toward her, nearly knocking her over. "What are you doing?" She stutters, trying to keep her balance.

"Tying you up," he huffs as he loops rope around her wrists. "You're supposed to be a prisoner."

"Oh come on, Zuko. What am I going to do, waterbend at the Fire Lord? I don't know what I'm doing."

"Didn't stop you from waterbending at me!" He finishes a series of complicated knots and grabs the tail end of the rope. "Come on."

"That was an accident," she grumbles. Zuko spares her a glance over his shoulder.

The rest of the walk passes in silence, aside from the light scuffing of their footsteps. Katara tugs on the rope from time to time, testing Zuko's hold, but he doesn't let go. She hears Uncle Iroh making bad jokes (and suddenly she misses Sokka so much it hurts), and in a moment she's standing before a tall man, taller than Zuko and Iroh, taller than her father. His eyes are gold, like Zuko's, but there's something cruel in the way they're set in his face, something about the steely glint surrounded by deep lines etched into his skin. Odd, since the Fire Lord can't be older than forty. His marble skin has a frown carved into it, as though if he tried to smile the face would crack.

"The waterbender, Father."

Katara looks at him with a glare she'd like to think is proud and defiant, like a Southern warrior. The Fire Lord walks up to her slowly, looking her up and down as if appraising a wolfhound. "Don't take her back to her dome."

"Father?" Zuko wears his confusion on his face. Katara sneaks a glance at Uncle, who seems paler than usual, and tense.

A smirk curls his lips almost imperceptibly. "She'll tell everyone she knows that the world is habitable again. They'll exit the domes and begin polluting the world again. We can't have that, can we, Prince Zuko?"

Zuko stands up a little straighter. "No, of course not."

"What do you propose we do with her?"

Katara stiffens. She doesn't like his tone, and she doesn't like how tense Uncle Iroh looks, and she doesn't miss the tightening of Zuko's jaw or the slight narrowing of his eyes. "In some cultures, it's rude to talk about people like they're not here."

Zuko ignores her, but Uncle stifles a chuckle. "I'm not sure yet," Zuko replies.

"Perhaps there is a simple solution."

Zuko looks as though he's developed a bad case of cotton mouth. "She's been cooperative."

"Hmm."

"She can be useful to me."

"You know what must be done."

"Father please, she hasn't done anything wrong."

"My nephew is right, Brother," Uncle cuts in. There is no reason to treat her harshly.

Katara eyes the three men deciding her fate. "Don't I get a say in this?"

The Fire Lord closes the distance between them and stands there for a beat before running one finger down the side of her face. Katara's skin crawls, but she stands perfectly still.

He turns to his older brother. "See that the Avatar is kept secure. I will take him back to the Fire Nation." Looking back at Katara, the Fire Lord's smirk slides off his face. "We have no need for either a waterbender or a liability. She will be executed at dawn tomorrow."

Katara gasps. Zuko steps between her and the Fire Lord. "You can't!"

"Would you like a mark on the other side as well, Prince Zuko?" The Fire Lord's voice carries a cold anger, displeasure at being contradicted mixed with some deeper loathing.

Zuko's golden eyes shimmer in the muted light filtering through the windows, fixed on his father. Shadows play across his face from the torches in the room around him, but he has carefully schooled his expression. When he answers, he doesn't look at her.

…

 _AN: Yep, there will be a continuation of this in a few chapters ish. Not sure where yet. Sometimes actually writing the ZukoxKatara is hard, just because they aren't really in a place to be head over heels for each other, but I swear it's in there. Deep down. Way, way deep down._


	21. Storm

ZW 2010 Day 7: Storm

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Lightning Strikes

 _Zuko feels cuddly._

Zuko wraps a dark brown curl around one finger, watching her sleep. His wife is beautiful, in a nontraditional, non-Fire Nation way, all blue beads and bone sewing needles and wild hair mixed up in a world of sleek metal and smoke. It's the rainy season now, what Katara calls winter, and the cold water patters against the window panes. Like the rest of the Fire Nation, they've barricaded themselves in their home, hiding from the chill.

Zuko misses the sun, and even Katara, master waterbender, has no interest in venturing out. The servants have gone home for the duration of the storm, and everything is so, so quiet inside that for a while the rain sounded like millions of Yu Yan arrows pelting the roof. Katara has the blankets pulled up to her chin, and she's curled around her pillow with tendrils of hair streaming over the mattress. Her husband curls himself around her, lightly stroking her face, brushing his hand along the curves of her body and nuzzling her neck. She stirs, looking at him with bleary eyes, and smiles.

"Love you," he whispers.

"Mhm." She pulls his arm around her and turns into his chest. He can feel the light fluttering of her eyelashes against his bare skin and the warmth of her body as her legs tangle with his. "You too."

He presses a kiss to her forehead and watches the lightning break open the sky.

…

 _A/N: Short and sweet, I guess. I had somewhere I wanted to go with it, but I also like it how it is, so don't be surprised if this scene makes a comeback as part of something bigger later._


	22. Mask

ZW 2011 Day 1: Mask

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Calloused

 _In their time in the crystal catacombs, Zuko likes to think he and Katara got to know each other, just a little bit. Katara likes to pretend the lost boy he was then was nothing more than an actor's mask, shattered the moment Azula approached him._

"That's something we have in common," he says, his raspy voice echoing loudly through the crystals. She wipes the tears from her face and meets his eyes.

They have a long time to talk; it's not as though they're going anywhere and it doesn't seem likely anyone's going to rescue them. "I wonder if Aang is learning anything new about the Avatar State," Katara wonders, long after they've run out of energy to talk about dead mothers and absent fathers.

Zuko raises his head. "Azula didn't capture him too?"

"No," Katara says. "He's at the Eastern Air Temple with a guru."

Zuko looks at her blankly. "The Avatar has a guru?"

"His name is Aang," she huffs.

He shifts uncomfortably. "I didn't know."

Katara sends him a sour look. "I guess you were too busy trying to capture us to pick up on names."

Glowering, Zuko crosses his arms and leans against the wall of the cave. "I had to restore my honor. It wasn't personal."

"Oh, and that makes it all better."

He sighs deeply. "Will you-" he pauses, looking at his feet as though they have the words he's looking for. "What's your name?"

A smile cracks across her face. "Katara. Nice to meet you."

"The Avatar thought we could have been friends," he says, after a beat.

"Aang."

"Aang. Aang thought we could be friends."

Katara eyes him skeptically. If Sokka were here he'd say something sarcastic, some shot about how many deep conversations Aang and Zuko must have had that one time Zuko actually managed to capture him. "When did he tell you that?"

Zuko ducks his head slightly and his hair covers his eyes. "It's a long story."

Katara steps closer to him and sits on the ground. "We're not going anywhere, Zuko."

He exhales noisily and slides down the wall to sit on the ground with her. "Do you remember Pouhai?"

She frowns. "Frozen frogs."

Zuko looks at her quizzically. "The Av-Aang was really determined to get them back to you guys."

Katara scrunches her face. "He made us suck on them."

He snorts. "Nice."

.

.

.

His peripheral vision is suboptimal with the mask on, and it makes sneaking into Pouhai Stronghold much harder than it has any right to be. He's relying on sound almost entirely with his face pressed up against the bottom of a supply wagon, and he waits, coiled and ready, as the guards at the gate inspect the inside of the wagon. One stops at the side as the other walks away, and Zuko swings himself up inside as the man grunts with the effort of bending to look underneath the wagon.

The wood creaks as the wheels begin to turn, and it muffles the sound of Zuko shifting his weight to crouch among the boxes as the wagon passes through the gate. Once inside the fortress, it's surprisingly easy to find the Avatar. Every guard on duty is buzzing about which section of the fortress he's guarding and whether or not his patrol takes him past the Fire Nation's Greatest Threat. Zuko slips out of the wagon, stealing along the walls and slipping through the shadows in the hallways. Guards increase in numbers as he closes in on the Avatar, but they've grown sloppy with arrogance and a calm routine. He dispatches them quickly.

Freeing the Avatar is even easier than finding him, though getting out proves to be the most difficult part of the entire plan (Zuko suddenly wishes he had thought that far ahead. It hadn't occurred to him when he left his ship that he would need to get past the guards with a flighty child wearing bright orange). They make it out just the same, and for reasons Zuko never does figure out, the Avatar doesn't leave him to be captured by Zhao, and when he wakes up the boy is in a tree and Zuko is on the ground with a substantial headache.

"He was Fire Nation, like you," the boy says, in a tone that suggests he's talking to himself more than he's talking to Zuko. "If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends too?"

Zuko looks at him incredulously. What kind of enemy sits around in trees asking to be friends, anyway? The Avatar looks at him with hope in his childishly large, gray eyes. Feeling a prick of something (and wanting very much for it to go away), Zuko slams a fireball in the Avatar's direction, but the boy flits through the treetops unscathed.

"Why did you rescue him," Katara asks, her voice soft.

Zuko glances at her from the corner of his good eye. "I couldn't let Zhao take him, and I couldn't fight Zhao."

The softness in her voice takes on a steel edge, and for a moment her voice sounds just a little like Azula's. "Why, was he too strong for you?" Zuko frowns, but doesn't respond. He's done taking bait; he won't take it from her and he won't take it from Azula (spirits forbid he ever sees his sister again). Katara's face contorts into a pained, spiteful grin, and she laughs bitterly. "You have to take all the glory for yourself, don't you?"

He hangs his head. "I just wanted to go home." It comes out weak, and suddenly he's ashamed of himself. He's losing all the dignity he had left, and this Water Tribe peasant is laughing at him.

Except that she stops, and looks at him curiously. "How would capturing Aang get you home? You're the prince."

"The banished prince," he mutters.

Katara frowns. "Why were you banished?"

Zuko glares at her. "Don't you have anything better to do than pry into my life story?"

She purses her lips. "Not unless you know a secret passage out of this crystal prison."

Zuko huffs. "I just was, okay. I was scarred and banished and the only way I could go home was by bringing the Avatar to my father."

"How did you get your scar?"

"Quit asking so many questions!"

They sit in silence for a while. Katara fiddles with the end of her braid and Zuko sits perfectly, stiffly still. "The Blue Spirit isn't the only one who wears a mask," she whispers, finally.

His face hardens more, if possible, but he looks her in the eye. "You don't know me."

"I can't know you if you don't tell me who you are."

He opens his mouth to respond when the wall of the cave explodes.

.

.

.

"He betrayed us in Ba Sing Se," Katara spits. "He can't be trusted."

Sokka lifts one finger. "When someone shows you who he is-"

"Believe him," Aang finishes, dourly. "But I need a firebending teacher. And it's not like another one is just going to fall into my lap."

"You never know," Sokka shrugs. "We got one."

Toph stomps one foot. "You guys are stupid. Let's just get him to train Aang. He's sincere."

"He's not who he says he is!" Katara exclaims.

Sokka lifts one eyebrow. "What do you mean?" He's a prince, firebender, theoretically capable of teaching Aang."

"That's not what I mean," she huffs. "He has masks. He was Mister Vulnerable in Ba Sing Se, and then he turned around and betrayed us. And when he was still playing loyal Fire Nation Prince, he busted Aang out of Pouhai! He betrays everyone, even his own people."

Sokka rubs his chin. "Is that true, Aang?"

Aang hangs his head. I didn't want to tell you guys, but he got me away from Zhao."

"And so you just told Katara?" Sokka squawks.

"No!" Aang protests. "How did you find out?"

"He told me," Katara grumbles. "Like he was trying to get me to think we were on the same side."

"Hold it there, Sugarqueen. Even you know that's not exactly true," Toph rolls her pale eyes.

In the end, Team Avatar descends into bickering but allows Zuko to join (despite him burning Toph's feet, although she doesn't seem particularly upset about it once Katara has healed them and Zuko has fallen over himself apologizing). But that doesn't stop Katara from marching into his room, late at night, once every one has gone to bed, and glaring ice daggers at him.

"I don't know who you are," she begins, and he looks at her calmly, impassively. "But I know you're selfish and you're probably doing this for some reason I haven't figured out yet. So if you take one step out, give me one reason to think whatever you're up to is going to hurt Aang, you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore."

He nods, but says nothing, and she storms out of his room as quickly as she'd stormed in. Loyalty and Zuko, Katara decides, are mutually exclusive.

.

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.

By the time they return from not killing Yon Rha, Katara thinks she might have been wrong, but not wrong enough to apologize and certainly not wrong enough to forgive him, but she admits to herself that it might be time to at least acknowledge that he hasn't screwed up yet. When she finds him in his mother's room, staring at her portrait, her voice is as soft as it was in Ba Sing Se, though her back is ramrod straight and she can't quite look at him.

"Thank you," she whispers.

"For what?" He looks up at her, wide-eyed.

"For not turning on us yet."

He closes his eyes and bows his head. "I won't."

For the first time, she smiles at him. "And for helping me find him."

Zuko still doesn't look at her. "It was the least I could do."

She walks up to him and places a bowl of rice and curried meat on his nightstand. "Normal salt."

He looks at her, finally. "Thank you, Katara."

His eyes are a beautiful gold, she notices, just like his mother's, and the slight upward tilt of his mouth is genuine. She wonders, suddenly, if the selfish, disloyal liar was the mask and if this boy, barely older than Sokka, who takes them on field trips and stares at his mother's picture and smiles at her when she brings him dinner, is what was underneath.

Maybe.

She shakes the thoughts from her head and stalks out of his bedroom.

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Zuko notices she stalks with a little less disdain today.

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.

 _A/N: Sometimes I read things where Zuko just opens up with very little prodding, and that always drives me crazy. So I didn't do that. This was also way more epic in my head than I feel it is once typed out, but y'all let me know what you think. Thanks, as always, to jacpin2002 for keeping me motivated. I really appreciate the time you take to write reviews here and on AO3 :)._


	23. History

ZW 2011 Day 2: History

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Lost to Time

 _Centuries after the war, a Fire Nation woman brings Li Peng some old, unreadable letters and asks for his help._

Li Peng is a humble restorer. He specializes in the thin paper scrolls favored during the Kaki dynasty (his preference is the scrolls with heat-sensitive invisible ink-a marvel-but few survived Sozin's War. He's poring over the ancient texts found in a wrecked warship, the author one Commander (Admiral, depending on the date of writing) Zhao. A girl enters his shop, and he starts at the jingle of the bells hanging from his door.

"Welcome to Li Peng's Restoration Service," he calls, trying to smile (but not too much). Li Peng has never quite had a knack for talking to customers. He's better with parchment.

The girl smiles back and approaches his desk, and as she comes closer he can see the pure gold of her eyes framed by black hair. He is struck by the notion that if the Council of the Four Nations hadn't banned monarchies years ago, he'd think her a princess. Come to think of it, she bears a resemblance to Fire Lord Izumi II (not that the girl would know who he was talking about. The woman abdicated and disappeared 60 years ago in favor of democracy).

"I have some letters," she begins, quiet and shy. "They've been in my family since Sozin's War."

Li Peng's eyebrows climb to his hairline. "Can they be read?" He asks, breathless.

"No," she replies. "My great-grandmother could read the Old Language, but the characters are faint and she can't see them well enough. That's why I brought them to you."

Li Peng nearly begins bouncing in his chair. "I can fix them for you-they'll look as they did 500 years ago." He pauses, looking at his hands.

"How much?" She murmurs, as if afraid to ask. "I don't have much to offer you."

"I'll do it free," he says. "But when your grandmother has read them, please write down her translation. I'd love to have it."

She offers him another smile, wider this time. "Deal."

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.

It's late, hours after he's closed his little shop and locked himself into the back bedroom with the box of letters. The girl (Li Peng is more than a little upset with himself for not catching her name) was right; the characters are faded enough that he has to put them under a scope to make out where the ink starts and ends, but he manages, and after several hours of work, the first letter is finished. He's made the letters black against the yellowed parchment, as he imagines they would have been so long ago. It's handy that he has these letters from Zhao; they seem to be from almost the same period, and the years spent in a metal box wrapped in ice has done a better job at preserving those letters than whatever has happened to these.

As the weeks go by and the work progresses, Li Peng's excitement grows. He's brushed up on the Old Language just a bit in his spare time, but it doesn't tell him much. His excitement comes from two names. Each letter starts with "Dear Katara," and ends with "Zuko."

If Li Peng knows his history, Katara was Avatar Aang's waterbending master and (this is the part that really gets Li Peng's blood pumping) Zuko must then refer to Fire Lord Zuko, firebending master to Avatar Aang, the legendary Fire Lord who defeated his sister in an Agni Kai for the throne and helped end the 100 year war. The man whose statue still stands in the Senate Chamber, across the room from Avatar Aang's.

Li Peng thinks he may just have a heart attack.

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The girl is as good as her word. Once Li Peng has finished restoring the ink and she's taken them home, she returns a few weeks later with a stack of translations. Li Peng rubs his hands together as she puts them on his desk with a smile. "Tell me, what was in them?"

She glances at him. "Sordid love letters."

Li Peng gapes at her. "You're not serious."

"Read them and find out," she replies. "Maybe you'd like to get coffee when you're done and we can talk about them."

Li Peng smiles. "I'd like that."

She nods, still smiling, and bows (an afterthought, Li Peng thinks). "See you."

"Wait-" Li Peng stands from his desk and pushes his chair back. "What's your name?"

"Ursa."

Li Peng plops back into his chair heavily. "Your name…"

"Read the letters," she orders. "It's a family name."

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.

 _Dear Katara-_ Li Peng squirms in his chair. He was right about the name, then-

 _It's not honorable to write this, so you should burn this, and I wouldn't tell you except you and Aang aren't together anymore and_ [Ursa has dutifully left a large blob of ink on the translation where he remembers filling it in on the original]

 _Anyway I was wondering if maybe you wanted to_ _have dinner feed turtleducks_ _have tea with me-and Uncle!- not just me, I think I know where my mother is._

 _Your friend,_

 _Zuko._

.

 _Dear Katara,_

 _I wrote you a letter before but it was stupid so I didn't send it. Would you honor me with your presence at tea with my uncle? We need to talk about reparations to the Southern Tribe-_ _do you need metal_ _. No, of course you don't, you have bone and you probably don't want my charity, but my council has been enjoying the arctic wine your father sent and they want more. It's awful; worse than the_ _Fatherlord_ _Fire Lord's sake and_

 _Never mind. This is stupid. Why am I so bad at writing?_

 _Zuko._

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _Mai might want to get back together but I'm not really sure why. I'm not really sure why she left in the first place. Anyway how have you been? Uncle wants the three of us to have tea._

 _Your friend,_

 _Zuko._

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _I was thinking maybe we should leave Uncle out of the tea, maybe it should be just the two of us. I miss_ _you_ _everybody, we should get together soon._

 _Zuko_

 _._

 _Dear Zuko,_

 _Why don't you ever write? You promised you would! Sokka and I have been designing new walls for the Southern Tribe (Sokka is very excited to be Head Architect, but some of the waterbenders from the North aren't happy about it). I haven't heard from Aang lately either, but I'm not expecting to either. I miss him, you know? We aren't really in love anymore, but he's still my best friend. It's just so awkward._

 _How've you been? How's Mai? Your uncle? My father says to pass along his highest regards, and Sokka says to say hi to the jerkbenders._

 _Please write. Even with the rebuilding it's quiet here, and I miss having all of us together._

 _Love,_

 _Katara_

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _I try to write! It's just that nothing ever comes out the way I want it to. I'm sorry._

 _Zuko._

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _I really do try to write. How have you been? I'm glad Sokka is_ _making himself useful_ _happy. Are you happy? I_ _wish you'd come to the Fire Nation_ _You should come to the Fire Nation. The five year anniversary is coming and Aang thinks we ought to bring dancing back and have a ball. I told him it was stupid, but maybe you'll like it. A_ _nd maybe you'd want to go with me?_

 _I wish_

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _The Council wants me to marry to secure my throne. They're probably right. Mai still wants to get married but I don't know. I_ _want you I want us to_ _I want to have everybody come to the palace_

 _._

 _Dear Zuko,_

 _Sokka got your invitation to come to the palace. A reunion is a great idea! We're looking forward to seeing everybody. Aang and I can talk without it being too awkward again, which has been really nice. Toph was thinking about coming to visit but Sokka told her there isn't any dirt under the ice near the city, so she decided not to (I hear she's staying with you for a few weeks?)._

 _Rumor has it your Council wants you to marry. Do you have anybody in mind? Your uncle told me last time I was in Ba Sing Se that you might but wouldn't say who it is. That's exciting. Is she pretty?_

 _I wish you'd write to me sometimes._

 _Love,_

 _Katara_

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _Yes, she's very pretty. She has blue eyes and brown, wavy hair that flies around her head. She's not pretty; actually, she's beautiful. I'll be seeing her when she comes with her brother to our Team Avatar -that's such a stupid name- reunion._

[A blacked out paragraph]

[The rest of the paper had been torn off]

.

 _Dear Katara,_

 _It was good to see you. I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to feed the turtleducks or have tea with Uncle. I had meetings. And things._

 _I'm not avoiding you, I swear. I just don't know how to look at you You're beautiful and I don't want to mess this up so I tried not to look stupid in front of you but_

 _I wish I could have spent more time with you._

 _Love,_

 _Zuko._

 _._

 _Dear Zuko,_

 _I'm starting to think I should stop writing. You never respond, and I barely saw you when we visited._

 _If you ever want to, you can still write._

 _Love,_

 _Katara._

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _Please don't stop._

 _Love,_

 _Zuko._

.

 _Dear Zuko,_

 _It's been a few years, hasn't it? I miss you. Aang and I have decided to try again (actually he proposed last week). We were going to tell you when we came next week, but I suppose I wanted you to know before._

 _Katara_

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _I am so, so sorry. Please don't marry him. We should have tea._

 _I don't want_

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _The wedding was beautiful._

 _You were beautiful._

 _Love,_

 _Zuko._

 _._

 _Dear Zuko,_

 _I feel my life leaving me. Ever since Aang died, I've been living in the South, and I feel the cold more than I used to. Before I go, I want you to know that you've always been one of my best friends, and though I hoped once that we could be more, I understand that you've never felt that way about me. But I wanted to tell you._

 _I hope all is well with you and your family._

 _Best,_

 _Katara._

 _._

 _Dear Katara,_

 _I love you. Hang on until I get there._

 _Love,_

 _Zuko._

 _._

 _Dear Ambassador Zuko,_

 _Katara passed away this morning. The Southern Water Tribe hopes you'll be able to attend her funeral, which will be later in the week._

 _Best,_

 _Avatar Korra._

 _._

 _Jing: Send word to Avatar Korra that we'll be there within the hour. I'll be meditating in my quarters._

 _Ambassador Zuko._

 _._

 _A/N: WordHippo tells me that Kaki is roughly translated to fire, fervor, ardor, etc. I thought it was fitting. I'm open to other input though since I am not at all an expert in the Japanese language._


	24. Social Networking

ZW 2011 Day 3: Social Networking

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Old Bones

 _Zuko and Katara are too old for politics._

Zuko is getting altogether too old for this. This idiot dignitary and that idiot dignitary keep asking him whether Izumi is really prepared to take the throne, whether the new Fire Lord is as committed to peace as her father; whether he thinks she'll get along with the new Avatar. The new Avatar doesn't get along with anyone, he doesn't say.

"Retired Fire Lord Zuko," comes a woman's voice. It's scratchy with age, like his, and he hasn't heard it in years, but he recognizes it immediately. He suppresses a grin.

"Master Katara," he says, turning and bowing as low as his stiff back allows. "It's been a long time."

"And," she replies, smiling, "whose fault is that?"

"Mine."

In Zuko's defense, he's been very busy making sure Izumi is settled on the throne and worrying about Iroh; he can't possibly be expected to keep up with everything (not everything, Katara pouts, just your oldest friends). They slip out of the room and into the garden just after dinner, Zuko hiding a few of the dinner rolls he'd swiped in his sleeve. Katara chuckles as he pulls them out and tears pieces for the turtleducks.

"If you paid half as much attention to the people in there as you do to the turtleducks, there would never be another war."

He scowls. "These are turtleducks. Those are ratvipers."

She rolls her eyes. "They aren't that bad."

Except that they are, and Zuko knows this because he's spent 70 years trying to make them happy (unsuccessfully, he might add). They're also deadly, but it occurs to him that he's done such a good job of keeping his friends from finding out about all of the assassination attempts throughout his career that further arguing the point will only make him look paranoid.

"You're a little paranoid, Zuko."

Case in point.

"I'm not paranoid!"

She tugs on his long, white beard playfully. "You're paranoid."

Zuko throws a small scrap of dinner roll into the pond a bit harder than is strictly necessary. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Katara lifts one eyebrow. "Social networking."

Zuko sighs. "I know that, I mean what are you doing sitting in the dirt with me? Shouldn't you be off making introductions, or showing off the Avatar or something?"

She scoots closer to him and rests her head on her shoulder. "I spent my whole life doing that. Don't you think I deserve a break?"

He tentatively leans his head on top of hers. It would be comfortable if he weren't 87 years old with arthritis in his hips. "Yeah, I guess."

She reaches across his body in a half hug. "I've missed you, Zuko."

He presses a kiss to the top of her white head. "I've missed you too, Katara."

They sit there for a while, largely to avoid the crowds and enjoy the other's company, but a little bit of Zuko has to admit there's another, far more embarrassing reason. He's pretty sure neither of them can actually get up off the ground.

This could be an adventure.

.

 _A/N: I like to think old Zuko and Katara would be a little romantically inclined, but I can never decide how much. I think they'd never go make out behind a pillar at the palace or something when they're close to 90, but they're both moderately unpredictable people so who knows. Coming soon?_

 _Feel free to vote yes or no on that._

 _Hope you guys enjoyed this! Tried to go for something more lighthearted than the last one…lol._


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